Payback Analysis of Buildings

with Glass
UNIT V
 Glazing Design for Energy Savings
in Sustainable Construction
Until recently, building industry professionals, in designing a
structure, have tended to consider only capital cost and ignore
potential savings in long-term costs. In the past decade,
however, the emergence of Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) certification, a third-party
recognition of a building’s performance developed by the United
States Green Building Council (USGBC) in 1998, has at last
kindled an interest in sustainable construction. Whereas
environmental ethics for their own virtue may not interest some
businessmen, LEED has given some incentive for all builders to
build green by demonstrating that sustainable design effects
cost savings throughout a building’s lifetime. Showing the
potential contributions of glazing toward such a goal was the
purpose of this study.
The payback period of Sustainable construction is concerned
with two types of payback periods.
The energy payback period is the amount of time a system in
use takes to recover its embodied energy through energy
savings, and
the financial payback period is the amount of time a system in
use takes to recover its initial cost through cost savings.
The energy payback period varies widely among different
types of windows. As a rudimentary test, consider a glazing
system to be sustainable if its lifetime – typically 20 to 60 years
before replacement – exceeds its payback period. Note that
for a glazing system to appeal to owners it is not the energy
payback period but the financial payback period that must be
shorter than the lifetime of the glass.
Double-glazed, argon-filled windows, depending on
their configuration, may have an energy payback
period of less than one yearThe addition of a low-e
coating may have an energy payback period of
merely one month, and a financial payback period of
five years or less. Clearly, low-e coatings are an
excellent investment.
The glazing systems of a building provide its
primary thermal and visual interactions with the
outside environment, and as such their design
contributes heavily to the thermal and lighting
loads on a building
 Glass specifications, framing types,
geometrical configurations, and components
like louvered sunshades and light shelves may
all be chosen to optimize the amount of thermal
energy and natural light a building receives
from the sun. These efforts help keep energy
costs for the building to a minimum and
contribute to the pursuit of sustainable
construction. The LEED system has emerged in
the last decade to promote sustainable
construction, and builders, by working to
achieve relevant LEED credits, may obtain
excellent designs for their glazing.
 OPTIMAL BUILDING DESIGN &
GLAZING
It is the 21st century, and energy conservation and
sustainability in architecture is surely gathering momentum.
With one eye fixed ever so intently on the environment and
the rising global temperatures, architects are turning to
innovation and technology to turn the tables on myopic
building design and combat energy inefficiency in our living
and working spaces.
This is where glass is proving to be their trusted accomplice.
Normally, it can be observed that when it comes to glazing solutions
providing high performance energy efficiency,
architectural glass variants with a lower Solar Factor and lower U-
Value are favoured. But to achieve the ideal balance between the
building design and glazing feasibility, we had to come up with an
optimum solution that offers best return on investment.
 A prominent learning institute in Mumbai

A case study in Mumbai Educational Institution

 A case study in Mumbai Educational Institution
First we conducted a study to understand the building design. Due to the
architecture of the institute, the building’s direct and indirect heat gain
had fallen down considerably. This can be explained by Fig. 1:
4 Classrooms located on the north side received diffused light and no
direct heat
4 South-facing classrooms were provided with a shading device to
prevent direct heat and glare
4 Buffer zones, created by placing the service areas along the east façade
and corridors along the west façade, prevented heat ingress in the offices
4 Walls had good insulation properties to prevent long-wave radiations
from entering into the building
4 North light provided natural light to a portion of the building
These observations allowed us to fine tune our glazing solution.
Ultimately, due to the optimal building design, we could choose a
solution which did not have the best specifications (and therefore higher
cost) but was a perfect match for the design.
SGU (Solar Control product from the AIS Ecosense range)
Solar Factor (SF)
Visual Light Transmission (VLT)
U-value indicates the rate of heat flow due to conduction, as a result
of temperature difference between inside and outside. The lower the U-
factor, lower the heat transferred through the glass. U-Value is
measured in W/m2oK.
In order to do so, a detailed building energy analysis
and simulation was conducted with a huge portfolio
of AIS products. Their performance parameters are
compared in the table above. Then, we compared
the energy saving percentage against cost payback
period.
This study is depicted in the Fig 2. As one can see,
Spring SGU (Solar Control product from the AIS
Ecosense range) which has Solar Factor (SF) = 64%,
Visual Light Transmission (VLT) = 65%, and U-Value
= 5.4 w/ m2 k performed best out of all the glasses
with 17% energy savings and 2 months’ payback
period, when compared to base case Clear DGU
(double glaze unit).
CONCLUSION
Thus, by understanding the relationship
between building design and glazing
type, we could suggest the client a
glazing glass with an optimum Solar
Factor and U-Value and higher VLT –
thus enabling the institute to save on
money and recover investment far
quicker than imagined.