'Smart Glass' is Coming To a Building Near You (axios.com) 93
Among the Inflation Reduction Act's little-noticed yet potentially game-changing provisions: a big incentive for "smart glass," which can make buildings significantly more energy efficient. From a report: Buildings account for 27% of annual global carbon dioxide emissions, by one estimate. While eco-friendly buildings aren't as sexy or exciting as electric cars, anything that makes them greener is a big win for hitting climate goals. The IRA, which President Biden signed into law earlier this month, includes a 30% smart glass tax credit. While it didn't get much mainstream attention, that credit stands to increase adoption by reducing the effective cost of retrofitting old buildings or using smart glass in new construction.
Smart glass, also called "dynamic glass" or "electrochromic glass," differs from regular glass in that its tint level can be adjusted on demand -- think Transitions glasses, but for buildings. Smart glass contains thin layers of metal oxide. When small amounts of electricity are applied to those layers, ions move between them, changing the glass' tint level. When the summer sun is hitting the side of a building, the tint level can be increased, allowing visible light to pass but blocking some solar radiation -- thereby reducing incoming heat. Conversely, the tint can be decreased in colder seasons, allowing more natural heat to pass through. Smart glass can help reduce a building's heating or cooling energy needs by about 20%, per a U.S. Department of Energy estimate. Plus, if lots of buildings in a single city adopt smart glass, it can reduce the peak load on the local electric grid during times of heavy use.
Smart glass, also called "dynamic glass" or "electrochromic glass," differs from regular glass in that its tint level can be adjusted on demand -- think Transitions glasses, but for buildings. Smart glass contains thin layers of metal oxide. When small amounts of electricity are applied to those layers, ions move between them, changing the glass' tint level. When the summer sun is hitting the side of a building, the tint level can be increased, allowing visible light to pass but blocking some solar radiation -- thereby reducing incoming heat. Conversely, the tint can be decreased in colder seasons, allowing more natural heat to pass through. Smart glass can help reduce a building's heating or cooling energy needs by about 20%, per a U.S. Department of Energy estimate. Plus, if lots of buildings in a single city adopt smart glass, it can reduce the peak load on the local electric grid during times of heavy use.
Ads (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yea, this is the first thing I thought of too.
Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. -George Carlin
Re: Ads (Score:3)
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well 1 pixel.
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Morse code ads. Unfortunately, they can only seem to sell ham equipment.
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With a decent size glass-fronted building, you could turn it into a huge QR code...
Re: Ads (Score:2)
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Hasn't Japan been doing that for like 10 years?
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Many shops filled their windows with ads a century or more ago. Shopping centres too.
They have it backwards (Score:2, Interesting)
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Tinting the glass darker will result in more heat absorption (dark colors absorb heat better). What they need to do is come up with a way to make the glass reflective on demand, which would result in reflecting sunlight away from the building and back into space.
Sounds like they're more concerned with excess heat coming through the glass and into the building, where a herd of humans are constantly fighting over a single thermostat for 2000SF of people.
The temperature of the actual building or glass is about as relevant as the obesity epidemic forcing the inside temp down to 70 degrees.
Re:They have it backwards (Score:4)
Where I work, we put all the cold-preference people (mostly men and fat women) in one area and all the warmth-preference people (mostly women and skinny men) in another area, regardless of job description.
Not only did the "thermostat wars" end, but inter-departmental communication improved as salespeople sat close to developers.
Another cost saver was to put skirts on women's desks with under-desk heaters to warm their legs, and small fans under men's desks to cool their legs.
Of course, an even bigger money-saver was to switch to 4:1 WFH (WFH 4 days per week, WFO 1 day per week).
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"Another cost saver was to put skirts on women's desks with under-desk heaters to warm their legs,"
Wouldn't that be like running a hair dryer under everyones desk in that section? If we're talking about 4 or 5 people, probably not that big of a deal... but still -- a space heater under so many folks' desk? If they went cheap, that's a scary fire-hazzard. What kind of heaters are these? Ceramic? With auto-shut off? Because an ungodly percentage of folks will leave it on. 24-7-365.
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What kind of heaters are these? Ceramic?
No, not ceramic. They are made of fabric. You can see them here [amazon.com].
With auto-shut off? Because an ungodly percentage of folks will leave it on. 24-7-365.
Yes, they have timers and shut off at the end of working hours.
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Salespeople sitting close to devs is the worst thing you can possibly do for developer productivity. Devs need relative quiet. Salespeople are talking all day- its their job to talk all day. Those two needs are in direct opposition. Putting devs next to sales people is a great way to cut your devs output by half, from experience.
Re: They have it backwards (Score:3)
Or perhaps half their output in this case results in twice as much revenue because their efforts are better aligned?
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Yeah, that's not what happens. Ever. Any small gain from that (which realistically should be 0 because there should be an entire product management team in between rather than having sales directly interacting with engineering in a day to day manner) is dwarfed by the loss in concentration by the engineers. The only way this could not be true is if they were one of the worst run companies in the world to begin with.
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Well, not necessarily, because you could, I suppose, make the windows completely opaque, which may have useful applications other than thermal management. But let's assume for the sake of argument that the opacity of this technology isn't quite as high as simple reflective film; it's still advantageous to be able to turn the opacity off, e.g. in the winter when solar warming is desirable or in the late afternoon where solar heating isn't as big a deal, particularly on the east side of buildings.
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A wall is even better.
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Re:They have it backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They have it backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
https://www.builderspace.com/w... [builderspace.com]
https://info.glass.com/underst... [glass.com]
The blocking is done at the outside pane, insulation provided by air space and the inside pane.
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The blocking is done at the outside pane, insulation provided by air space and the inside pane.
That works in the summer to keep the building cool.
In the winter, it should be reversed. The inside pane should absorb the sunlight to heat the building while the air gap and outside pane insulate.
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Sure. Or, you know, just let all the light in during the winter (as in TFA). This will warm the floor, which will evenly heat the room better than warmth captured near the top of the window. No need to make this more complex.
I'm looking forward to these windows.
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Well, yeah, but half then the glass is going to radiate that heat, half of it toward the outside; possibly more if it's double pane. So the question is whether having the building's surface absorb and reemit energy yields any kind of net energy savings over having the building's interior absorb and reemit energy. This is the kind of question that could provoke a handwaving argument between armchair physicists here, but fortunately I can resolve that question, having read the f'in article summary. There's
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Google "passive solar heating". Glass windows aren't heating the homes and offices by transmitting heat into the buildings they are heating the spaces via solar radiation converting to heat and radiated when they strike internal surfaces. That heat is then blocked from leaving the space since glass isn't a very good conductor of heat and the insulated walls are even worse at letting the heat escape.
These "Smart Glass" windows aren't blocking heat they are blocking light.
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Tinting the glass darker will result in more heat absorption (dark colors absorb heat better). What they need to do is come up with a way to make the glass reflective on demand, which would result in reflecting sunlight away from the building and back into space.
It all depends on where the absorption happens. If it happens after the light has passed through the glass into the building, then the heat is trapped inside. If it happens on the outermost pane of three pane windows, most of the heat you would have gotten is ultimately rejected.
I have to say, while this may not be a terrible idea, I would be more comfortable if the grant worked for any equivalent method of reaching the same energy savings. For example, automated shutters. Or how about a rolled up, transluc
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Is there anything in the so called "inflation reduction act" which actually...you know...reduces inflation?
In the short run, no. It is a spending bill, which increases inflation.
In the long run, maybe. Reducing energy consumption lowers the cost of energy.
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One thing would be the increased budget and personnel for the IRS. Collecting more taxes means removing money from the economy thus reducing inflation.
In truth though it won't be known for another couple years and even then it will be murky. Inflation is a far more complex thing than a spending bill, or a President or any government policy really outside of interest rates which already appears to be working somewhat. Is that a satisfying answer? No, but it's the reality.
New IRS Agents (Score:2)
Ya, speaking of the IRS; those 87,000 new agents aren't going to be focused on "The Rich" ( as if that makes it alright ), they're going to squeeze the middle class and poor.
Think about it; the rich are few in target and have a lot of money, but they also have the means to appropriately and legally protect that money, so those 87k agents aren't going to be all that successful squeezing them.
The middle class though? Oh, there will be riches for days to grab from them. There will be bullying and coercion that few will have the finances to fight against, so they'll pay whatever protection money they're told to in the hopes they'll be left alone.
From what I understand, the new agents will focus on those earning $100k or more. This is still part of the middle class. I'd be shocked if they went after the truly rich.
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Gee, I wonder if that is the result of a decades long campaign to gut the IRS of it's most expereienced and capable people and resources needed to audit the wealthy.
https://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/l... [syr.edu]
A critical limitation in the IRS’s ability to audit millionaires is the availability of IRS revenue agents. Only this class of auditors, given sufficient training and experience, are qualified to examine complex tax returns – the types of returns typically filed by high-income individuals and large-sc
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The other thing that the rich are able to do that the middle class and poor aren't so easily able to do is hide money and use fancy financial tricks to avoid paying the taxes they should be paying.
Would you rather try getting a million dollars one dollar at a time from 1 million people making less than $100000 or would you rather get one million dollars out of one person making $100 million+?
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No...once again, the "name" of a bill is designed to deceive and has nothing to do with its name.
In this case, I personally refer to it as the "income reduction act", since the resulting inflation will, in essence, reduce your buying power.
Hey, and to add on top of that, Biden is attempting to forgive in the ballpark of $500,000,000 i
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That's it? Only half a billion dollars? Considering the Federal Reserve has pumped $6 trillion into the economy [bloomberg.com] in the past two years alone, and is still buying $30 billion in bonds/treasuries each month, half a billion is essentially a rounding error. I'm presuming you're "upset" with that as well, right?
which should add a nice hefty squeeze of inflation on top of what this bill does
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Hey, and to add on top of that, Biden is attempting to forgive in the ballpark of $500,000,000 in student debt,
Sour grapes from the suckers who got conned by the Federal Student Loan System.
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More like sour grapes because we made decisions that didn't put us into life long debt but some how now have to watch our taxes dollars go towards people with degrees. Those degree holders are already in a better position to get a better job then someone without the education.
I'm just glad I'm not a student that will graduate next year or maybe two years out and still be stuck like chuck. Hopefully they were wise and went for good degrees at more reasonable schools.
There are a lot of great transfer agreemen
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There's more than just sour grapes; why is tuition already so high? It's because of the guaranteed funds from the government to the colleges via students ( who are left holding the bag ). By forgiving even a portion of that, colleges will raise their rates even further on the promise of this forgiveness and more in the future.
And thus the inflation of tuition ramps into high gear.
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That's it? Only half a billion dollars?
No. The math-challenged GPP left off three zeros. It is half a trillion dollars (over ten years).
Even half a trillion ($50B/year) isn't a big deal compared to all the other spending.
A bigger issue is the unfairness. It is a subsidy to those who were the least responsible. People who paid for college by working or serving in the military, those who paid their debts off early, and those who couldn't afford college even with the loans, get nothing.
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I couldn't agree with you more. However, Biden is betting that most, if not all of them, will vote Democrat this year, and that's all that he cares about.
Re:"Inflation Reduction"? (Score:5, Insightful)
While we're at it, let's discuss the astronomical amount of money in tax breaks for the fabulously wealthy. We aren't wealthy. Where's our amazing tax breaks and loopholes? How about the amount of PPP loans that were forgiven. Massive loans just written off. Where's everyone's feelings about that? This isn't about and has NEVER been about the student loan help. It's about who did the forgiving. And you're lying if you say that isn't what it's actually about. Your argument is taken directly form the talking heads at FOX. F-ing verbatim.
And let's discuss how many teachers, nurses, first responders and dozens of other jobs that require college, but most certainly do not get paid middle class incomes? Why do we always leave them out of the discussion? Dude I could go on for days about why your argument is complete crap.
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They can, but there are a lot of conditions attached to the forgiveness to such an extent that many never do.
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Oops..my bad, I think I left off 3x more zero's..should have been half a Trillion.
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However, energy cost is a huge factor in the current round of inflation. (I won't say money supply and economic output harmed by Covid aren't factors too).
In the long run, we've had one round of energy crisis after enough for the last half century or more when fossil fuel and geopolitics collide. Sustainable ene
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>
Hey, and to add on top of that, Biden is attempting to forgive in the ballpark of $500,000,000 in student debt, which should add a nice hefty squeeze of inflation on top of what this bill does.
Do you get upset when the farmers are bailed out even though you're not a farmer? How about all the people in congress who were forgiven hundreds of thousands in PPP loans? You aren't a member of congress. Matt Gaetz had close to half a million in loans and he's already wealthy.
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Do you get upset when the farmers are bailed out even though you're not a farmer?
A bit, but everyone eats food, so (supposedly), everyone benefits from a farm subsidy. People who had no student loans or paid theirs off do not benefit from the people getting useless degrees and now have the "honor" of paying off someone else's mistake.
How about all the people in congress who were forgiven hundreds of thousands in PPP loans? You aren't a member of congress. Matt Gaetz had close to half a million in loans and he's already wealthy.
PPP loans were handled in an extremely sloppy way which allowed for widespread abuse. They were created by and abused by politicians. Haul all of them into a public hearing and mock their selfishness.
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A bit, but everyone eats food, so (supposedly), everyone benefits from a farm subsidy. People who had no student loans or paid theirs off do not benefit from the people getting useless degrees and now have the "honor" of paying off someone else's mistake.
What about the farmers growing crops that are useless to you. How do you feel about brussels sprouts? Do you feel that farmers dedicated to that one crop shouldn't get subsidies. How about lumber farmers? Let's say you just built your dreamhouse, that you plan to live in until you die. Do you get upset if people farming lumber (or you know, loggers, what have you) start getting a subsidy to bring down lumber prices right after you paid for all the lumber for your dream home? Sure, it doesn't feel great, but
Re: "Inflation Reduction"? (Score:2)
Tint - solid colors? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like two things with smartglass.
First? Color choice. What would be ideal would be the ability to transition between white or black, and various shades of gray. If they want to include other colors, cool, but white and black and the two I'd want. White for summer (reflect heat and light) black for winter (absorb heat and light).
Second? Not just tints. Blackout (or whiteout) completely. Why? We have dogs. If the little bastards couldn't see out they'd stop barking at every neighbor, every other dog, every squirrel and every waving blade of grass they happen to see when laying with their heads in the window.
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We have a shih tsu, and our neighbors had several german shepards. (I write "had," because they've moved away, along with their dogs.) Their dogs would yap at anything that moved, including each other, and our dog would run over to that side of the house and yap back, even though she couldn't see the other dogs or what they were yapping at. Dogs don't need to see something to bark at it, they just need to he
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Our dogs are instigators. One likes to lay with her head right in the window so she can see things. And she'll announce everything from a bird flying by to a piece of garbage getting blown across the driveway. I'd say blackout windows would give us about a 75% reduction in unnecessary yapping, perhaps more on a good night.
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Or you could train your dogs not to bark?
That's what responsible dog owners do. If you think you can't train your dog, the problem is most likely you and not your dog.
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building window glass is usually two layers; shouldn't be too hard to make the outer layer clear/white, and the inner layer clear/black, then you can switch them as needed.
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We have dogs. If the little bastards couldn't see out they'd stop barking at every neighbor, every other dog, every squirrel and every waving blade of grass they happen to see when laying with their heads in the window.
Maybe, but wouldn't they just bark at every single sound or smell they got from outside instead?
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They do that already. This would just be removing one potential stimulus. We'd need to soundproof the house to get them to stop completely. Considering how often they lose their minds for a neighbor daring to step outside their house, I'd consider it a positive step to blackout the windows on cue.
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You really might want to consider bark collars. They're not so bad. I've tried one on the highest setting and it really just felt like getting a little slap on the throat with a ruler. Of course, I realize that barking at things might be the dogs favorite activity and you might not want to take that away from them. There are various ones that come with remotes, timers, what have you though, and it should be quite possible to train them to understand when the collar is turned off and they're free to bark or
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I would, but attempting to discipline the dogs leads to spousal disagreements. Strong disagreements. Because they're so precious and special and stuff.
I mean, I love the little furballs, but there are times I think it's OK to say, "Yo, stop it." She doesn't.
The IRA? (Score:2, Funny)
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Just wait until you hear about their retirement strategy!
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Nice little nest egg you got there. It'd be a pity if something happened to it...
What is old is new. (Score:4, Insightful)
Saw this technology in 1990. There must be other factors why it hasn't been widely deployed: installation cost, cost vs benefit, fire safety, impact resistance, longevity (mean time to failure), ease of repair/replacement, recyclability, etc.
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I think the main reason is still cost. I've looked at smart glass for some of my windows, and it's still expensive. It's probably a money saver overall, but it's a classic problem with this kind of thing: a big up-front cost and a long, slow payback. If they can use subsidies to get more people to install it, the costs may come down. That would lead to a virtuous cycle where increased sales lead to reduced unit costs, which lead to even more increase in sales.
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So, I can shed a little light on this as I recently redid my bathroom and my shower was moved to where there's a double window. The plan was for privacy glass. As such, I pulled 16 gauge wire to the two sides and went to task for finding privacy glass for 2 windows, each 25 3/4" x 48 3/4".
I found a local vendor who would change the glass itself. They wanted $5000+. Out of my price range. My next option was privacy films, which are put directly on the existing glass with a small channel on top to run th
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The older tech had issues. With electrochromic glass there was a tint, and the transition was quite slow (several minutes). Newer tech has fixed those issues, but because high voltages are required (100V+) it needs to be built into the glass for safety reasons, i.e. it can't be retrofitted.
There is also LCD, which is safer and relatively cheap. It just goes dim though, it can't offer a mirror finish and like normal tinted windows is still somewhat transparent even in the dark state. The other issue is that
Could They Use E-Ink? (Score:3)
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Large format e-ink is one of those really neat pieces of tech that has never quite made it to the mainstream.
You can find some products out there in the 30-40" size range but it's pretty uncommon, i'm not sure due to issues with scaling production or patents or just lack of demand, it's just never made it out of small displays and e-reader territory.
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https://electronics.stackexcha... [stackexchange.com]
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E-ink is made up of cells containing white paint and black oil. Depending on the charge applied, you either see the paint or the oil. It is never transparent, so would be useless for windows.
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E-ink is made up of cells containing white paint and black oil. Depending on the charge applied, you either see the paint or the oil. It is never transparent, so would be useless for windows.
Depends. While it's not optically transparent, translucent has a place like in skylights, yes?
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But it is not translucent. Each micro-cell has a black side and a white side. A momentary charge flips the cell so you are looking at the desired side. You are never looking 'through' the cell.
Just genius (Score:2)
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Un-American! (Score:1)
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I hate this demonization of 30% of the country by another 30%, in both directions. I think the 40% of independents should come out against the 60% and unite them.
How much smart glass stock do the Pelosi's own? (Score:1)
I'll bet graft is her middle name.
https://readsludge.com/2022/07... [readsludge.com]
Just use an awning or porches (Score:2)
Can't have direct solar heating if the sun doesn't hit the window in the first place. But no, use the window coated with some weird toxic bullshit that they'll figure out was a horrifyingly bad idea in 30 years.
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So you'll have hot awnings and porches surrounding your building; what a genius you are. No real estate for that stuff in large cities anyway
Yah, that stuff is insanely expensive (Score:2)
We have a sliding glass door on our house. It's got internal shades that need replacing, and just for giggles looked into replacing with some sort of electrochromic thing.
$2500 for DIY window film.
Slow Glass (Score:2)
Slow glass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_of_Other_Days) would be even better; you could have the winter light come through the windows in the summer, causing less heat, and the summer light come through in the winter. You could also offset the time by twelve hours, but that might be inconvenient for sleeping.
A better idea (Score:2)
A better way to save building energy would be to install
electically operated shutters that would block direct
sunlight while leaving the view open to daylight.
You could also install solar panels on those shutters.
If the energy generated that way were only used
to provide extra energy for summertime air conditioning,
they would pay for themselves in a few years
while saving a huge amount of energy over the lifetime
of the building.