Impact of Phase Change Material (PCM) glazing on the energy consumption and solar radiation transmission in an office room located in a semiarid climate: Analysis of a real-scale experiment.

Abstract

Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are materials with high latent heat. When integrated into the glazing, they arise as an innovative strategy to improve thermal performance and provide thermal inertia in office buildings with a lack of opaque. Climates with high solar radiation and great temperature variation between day and night are especially interesting because PCM glazing can vastly improve these buildings’ energy performance. Then, this paper aims to analyze the energy performance of an office room with PCM glazing compared to a reference room with double-clear glazing, in a semi-arid climate. A real-scale experiment was carried out for a year in two office rooms located in Santiago, Chile. The analyses include energy consumption of the HVAC system to keep the interior temperature of the room in the comfort range and the solar radiation transmitted through the windows. Results are presented for three representative weeks of summer, mid-season and winter. An important reduction of the solar radiation transmitted was achieved in the PCM glazing in respect to the double-clear glazing when the phase change occurs, and a decrease of the energy consumption of cooling and heating mainly for sunny and variable days was found.