Experimenting and testing the use of electrochromic windows in the Mediterranean climate

The study of electrochromic glass launched by the group for several years, has already developed the first stage, to simulate these materials in a building with standard glass envelope, through appropriate computer codes. The results were presented at GPD 2009 in an article entitled "Studying the performance of an electrochromic envelope in an office building in Mediterranean climate”. The second part is set to the criteria of physical and technical characteristics of electrochromic glass, applied to a building housing mainly in masonry. The main objective is, in addition to confirming the results obtained through simulation, to evaluate the costs-extremely beneficial use of these windows in buildings with a ratio between window areas and paved surface medium or low in the Mediterranean area. The exsperimentation phase, starting in the fall, will consist in setting up two test chambers of equal size, orientation and use, choices within a building dating back to the '50s. In one of the two rooms will replace existing ones with electrochromic glazing, while the other will be positioned commercial LE glass, and will be localized in both the instrumentation for measuring physical parameters of all the environmental gains in terms of energy savings. The data collected will be processed periodically with specific software, and analyzed as a function of the primary objectives of the research. This will envolve, consequently, the variation range identification of this ratio in which the convenience of the electrochromic windows use becomes optimal.