Performance of New Active Water flow double-pane windows for Energy management in buildings.

Buildings account for such a significant amount of the energy consumed in the World. While window glazing will be more and more extensively used in modern architecture, active water-flow window panels are being introduced in the market with a double objective: to reduce energy consumption and to manage solar energy striking on building facades.In order to reach a nearly-zero energy consumption new materials and constructive solutionsare required. Disposing of the heat captured by the water can be achieved in different ways. In hot climates it can either be dissipated together with the buildings other heat loads in whatever refrigeration system is provided, or it can be stored in a tank and cooled down by evaporative refrigeration or night dissipation at a very low energy cost. This article shows real data obtained by means of monitoring real buildings using water flow glass panes. Certain layer coatings have been developed in order to reduce the emissivity of the glass, and to retain the heat inside. Her- manns, del Ama and Hernandez (2012) demonstrated properties of low-emissivity glazing used in solving the problem of exces- sive heat loss in winter. Ismail and Salinas (2006)proved that acting in the air chamber can improve the insulation capacity in double-glazed windows, for instance by filling it with inert gas, or by it being a vacuum space.In summer conditions the prob- lem consists of solvingenergy gains in the summer due to solar radiation. An effective approach to overcome this problem is to capture the largest possible solar fraction before it reaches the occupied areas, and dispose of it somewhere else. Chow, Li and Lin (2010) studied the effectiveness of water flow glazing espe- cially in hot climates with no extreme exterior temperatures.