Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GlasSkin (willem@physee.eu)

Teaser

\"As a society we spend 90% of our time indoors. As a result of which, our buildings combined consume 40% of the global electricity demand. Additionally the indoor climate of buildings is poorly maintain, and most of the time the air quality is of lower quality than the outdoor...

Summary

\"As a society we spend 90% of our time indoors. As a result of which, our buildings combined consume 40% of the global electricity demand. Additionally the indoor climate of buildings is poorly maintain, and most of the time the air quality is of lower quality than the outdoor air quality. Creating a truly energy-neutral building is one of the central goals of all global renewables legislation because it is paramount for our society. Indeed, environmental impact is central to the entire project.

PHYSEE is a Netherlands-based company set up in 2014 by researchers from the Technical University of Delft. Its founding principle is the application of advanced physics to real-world problems: specifically, the transformation of window glass into both an electricity-generating surface and an active part of building energy management. The company name is derived from the words “Physics” and “Seeing”. This project, named GlasSkin, reflects our ambition to change glass from inert shell to living skin by incorporating our patented coating, solar and sensor technology in 100% transparent insulated glass units (IGUs) to make buildings smart, sustainable and healthy.

GlasSkin presents a genuine transformational opportunity with a huge potential impact on efforts to combat climate change. The combination of power generation and smart building climate management means the solution can reduce a building’s reliance on external power sources by between 20% and 80%, depending on building size and use. Because it is integrated with (and powers) building climate management systems GlasSkin also offers major human benefits in terms of work productivity and quality of living or working experience.

The overall objectives of the project are to change the world’s perspective on the purpose of glass from “inert window” to “living skin,” and from “energy sink” to “energy source\"\". Resulting the the following strategic goals:

- By 2020, perfect a solar-powered window – plus control systems – that becomes a “no-brainer” for real estate developers in both new-builds and retrofits.
- By 2025, displace conventional windows in 20% of 10-storey new-builds and retrofits in the Netherlands, Germany, France and the UK.
- By 2025, develop a presence in Asian and North American markets equating to 10% of PHYSEE turnover.

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Work performed

During the first 10 months of the GlasSkin project PHYSEE focused on their main strategic and high-level objectives. Overall PHYSEE has established constructive dialogue with the real estate industry and has been able to convey the message of transforming glass from inert window to living skin.

Commercially, PHYSEE sold more than 25 PHYSEEbility Checks in the past 10 months, including projects in Germany, France, the USA, and Ireland. Our SmartWindows are successfully installed in several pilot projects throughout the Netherlands and up to today the windows have proved to be fail free. In the first half of 2019 our Windows have been certified with the EN 1279 certification by the glass manufacturing partner NSG Pilkington, allowing for certified installations by NSG Pilkington at large scale. Currently we are preparing for the installation of our windows in the first large scale projects in the Netherlands to be successfully installed in the second half of 2019.

From a technology perspective, the coating development is currently undergoing the performance tests at NSG Pilkington, which are under suitable circumstances for the certification tests at Fraunhofer afterwards if the results are positive. On the design aspect the COGS per square meter dropped below €100 so far, by developing the in-house FlatPack Facilities with 14 separate work-stations to handle, assemble and ship the hardware components. In this way PHYSEE\'s partner window manufacturers can receive these plug & play FlatPacks, assembly the SmartWindows in their own facilities, and provide the previously achieved European EN1279 certification on the windows before transporting these to the construction site ready for installation.

So far external engineering companies such as DGMR calculated 15-20% energy reduction when using the GlasSkin value proposition and PHYSEE is executing on large scale commercial projects already the second half of this year. This traction is resulting in an increased pipeline of project in the Netherlands, Germany, UK and France so far. The existing partnerships are successful and additionally partnership negotiations with new partners are ongoing. This combined resulted in negotiations with multiple major glass manufacturers for projects in Germany, the UK, and France in addition to the Netherlands.

Final results

Since the start of the SME GlasSkin project, PHYSEE has been able to develop and certify the first commercially applied electricity and data generating, 100% transparent windows, together with global glass and window manufacturers in large-scale real estate projects. With the combined electricity and data produced, PHYSEE is already able to achieve energy savings of up to 20% on the overal energy consumption of buildings, when powering and controlling facade functionalities such as solar blinds or mechanical air ventilation. By the end of this project PHYSEE aims to have increased the power production to 30Wp/m2, and to have reduced the costs per square meter further to €10. Finally PHYSEE expects to enter into at least two partnership agreements with global glass manufacturers in a minimum of 3 European countries for commercial scale.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.physee.eu/smeglasskin.