Page 12 - CooperatorNews New Jersey Fall 2021

12 COOPERATORNEWS NEW JERSEY
—FALL 2021
NJ.COOPERATORNEWS.COM
about $10. Today, he says, it’s about 4¢ to 5¢. emissions, as the U.S. Department of Energy
According to Mierlo, the material of a estimates that energy lost through conven-
solar panel acts as a semiconductor, which tional windows accounts for approximately
processes electricity in a way that wastes a 30% of heating and cooling energy.
certain percentage of energy. The best a so-
lar panel can do, he says, is to harness 24%
of available energy from the sun, and today’s board decide which one or ones to imple-
panels are approaching that limit. But new ment in their building or association and
technologies promise a higher energy har-
vest. His company is developing a tandem size does not fit all, say the experts. Marc
module, which has the ability to increase the Zuluaga, PE, CEO of Steven Winter As-
energy output of a solar panel by 35%. Us-
ing two semiconductors, tandem panels can firm specializing in energy optimization for
capture energy from both low- and high-
wavelength photons. When they become offices in New York, Connecticut, and Mas-
commercially available in the near future, sachusetts—tells CooperatorNews that ex-
it is expected that tandems will reduce the isting multifamily buildings would do best
kilowatt-hour cost of a solar panel to 2¢.
An additional technological advance-
ment is the actual material being used to there,” continues Zuluaga, “but at a mini-
make solar panels. The traditional poly-
silicon is already fairly
thin and versatile, but
a new material called
perovskite is on its way
to
commercial
use.
Thinner and more trans-
parent than crystalline
silicon, perovskite has
the potential to be lay-
ered on top of existing
solar panels to boost ef-
ficiency, or be integrated with glass to make
building windows that also generate power. standards for large residential buildings as
Mierlo’s 1366 Technologies has announced part of a larger climate compliance initia-
a merger with Hunt Perovskite Technologies tive. New York’s Local Law 97, for example,
LLC, according to Bloomberg, which will requires buildings over 25,000 square feet to
combine the two technologies to create an submit professional energy assessments and
even more efficient solar panel.
There is an uptake component that can five-year intervals leading up to 2050, when
potentially reduce costs even further—and the city intends to reach its carbon-neutral
that, says Mierlo, is the biggest challenge. It’s goal. “Then as new equipment goes into
a major transition, in both physical compo-
nents of a building or community and men-
tal adjustments to a new way of accessing sponsive to the needs of the residents and
utilities. In the bigger picture, there has to the people in the building, and includes tell-
be a political will to shift resources and in-
frastructure away from the entrenched fossil equipment’s doing—and you can get more
fuel industry and into a cleaner, greener en-
ergy economy. “But the solutions are there,”
according to Mierlo. “We just have to decide submission in Local Law 97 isn’t until 2024,
that we want to do it.”
Another new technology taking hold in now—regardless of where you live. For one
Europe and the Middle East is smart glass, thing, these types of projects take a while to
also known as electrochromic glass or dy-
namic glass. Using a tiny burst of electric-
ity to charge ions on a window layer, smart ergy data today, it could take until 2024 to
glass can change the amount of light it re-
flects. This goes beyond the low-emittance will bring your building to required carbon
windows that block some of the sun’s radia-
tion—an existing technology already in use gent over time. And another important fac-
in some multifamily buildings in the U.S. tor that Zuluaga indicates is that once these
Rather, smart glass allows users to choose modifications are online, they will deliver
how much light they want to block. And, as savings in costs, usage, and efficiency, no
the name suggests, smart window controls matter where your building is located. Why
can be linked to a building’s management not reap those benefits as soon as possible?
system, allowing for remote and automatic
tint adjustment depending on time of day,
year, weather, etc. This convenience and aes-
thetic enhancement can save a building or
community in both HVAC costs and carbon
Decisions, Decisions
With all of these options, how does a
when? This is definitely an area where one
sociates—an architecture and engineering
commercial and residential buildings with
to “start with what you have.”
“There’s lots of sophisticated systems out
mum, looking at your annual bills and un-
derstanding
the implica-
tions is as
i mp o r t a nt
as
making
sure that the
data is right.”
Several U.S.
cities,
in-
cluding New
York
City
and Chicago, have adopted benchmarking
achieve energy reduction benchmarks at
your building,” continues Zualaga, “make
that ‘smart’ equipment—that means it’s re-
ing you how the building’s doing, how the
sophisticated over time.”
While the first year for accurate data
there is no reason not to start the process
research, analyze, estimate, and install. Even
if you start examining your building’s en-
actually implement the modifications that
emission limits, which only get more strin-
Kelly Doherty, vice president of FirstSer-
NEW GREEN TECH...
continued from page 1
“Every building is going to
have to create their own mas-
ter plan of how they’re going
to get to that threshold.”
—Kelly Doherty
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