Strathclyde University's passive solar, low-energy, residences with transparent insulation

These innovative buildings for 376 students are described from planning to the results of 3 years monitoring. They are to date the World's largest demonstration of Transparent Insulation, being a Demonstration Project supported by the European Community and Scottish Enterprise. The factors considered are: design, construction, occupation, comfort, energy characteristics, performance of the Transparent Insulation, including staining by pollution, overall energy consumption, cost effectiveness, practical aspects and important lessons learned. Monitoring shows that commercial energy use is 40% less than the “good” category of official UK indicators and a survey quantifies encouraging user satisfaction generally. The solar fraction of useful gain in winter is 20% of total energy. The south faces of the building have a monthly net gain of energy into the building throughout the year even in mid winter in Glasgow.