Shadesmart and Radiant Cooling technologies promote energy-efficient cooling in buildings
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India, in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology, has come up with a novel external shading solution for windows in residential and commercial buildings for achieving indoor comfort with reduced electricity consumption in air conditioning and lighting.
External shading devices are not common in modern buildings, which are mostly glazed or buildings with curtain walls. They are usually permanent structures, posing challenges such as maintenance, obstruction of views, architecturally not meeting the aspirations of the client, and so on. In contrast, ShadeSmart changes its configuration depending upon the Sun’s position, an official release said. When the Sun is in the East direction, East façade windows will be shaded in ShadeSmart. Once the Sun is in South orientation during noon ShadeSmart configuration on East changes to provide unobstructed external views and glare-free daylight.
The performance of each of these designs have been tested through software simulation as well as real-time field measurements at testbeds, the release said. The technology will help to bring inside the buildings more daylight with less heat, thus making occupants comfortable and also more productive and healthy, it added.
Radiant cooled buildings have an extremely high potential of energy-saving (60-70%). Standard protocols for operation of radiant cooled buildings and adaptive thermal comfort standards for radiant cooled buildings in India will make it convenient for the masses to adopt radiant cooling technology.
Low energy hybrid cooling technologies and control mechanisms in radiant cooled buildings is being demonstrated along with the industry partners. The availability of such technology at an affordable cost will help reduce our dependency on imported products.
Due to the COVID 2019 Pandemic, conventional air cooling, which involves re-circulation on return air, is being perceived as harmful to the health of occupants. In this scenario, Radiant Cooling, which employs 100% fresh air supply, is expected to gain popularity and higher acceptance rates in the air-conditioning industry. Hence establishing adaptive comfort bands and operating protocols of radiant cooled buildings can help the buildings sector adopt this low energy cooling technology, the release said.
