New from NPR 推廣科技窗，幫你省荷包

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另外
本周最新NPR
這篇廣播探討節能窗戶low-e windows
以奈米晶Nanocrystal塗層
留住陽光阻擋熱氣
還能控制室內溫度
幫你我都省荷包!
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Warmth In Winter: Smart Windows To Let Heat In

by Lauren Sommer Heard on All Things Considered November 28, 2011MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And speaking of smart, researchers are developing smart windows智慧型窗戶. It's a high-tech高科技 effort to cut down on the huge amount of energy that leaks through windows. Lauren Sommer, of member station KQED, has that story.

LAUREN SOMMER, BYLINE: As someone who studies windows, Howdy Goudey isn't surprised that most of us find them a little boring.

HOWDY GOUDEY: Well, it's a pretty pedestrian object人行道物件. You know, what's new to do with a window?

SOMMER: But here at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, windows are the focus of some cutting-edge高科技 research. Goudey uses an infrared camera紅外線攝影機 to look at how windows lose heat流失溫度. The camera shows us as red and yellow blobs一小塊/一小滴 on a nearby monitor.

GOUDEY: We look like, you know, funny rainbow people. But it's representing surface temperatures代表表面的溫度 of the object it's looking at.

SOMMER: For the most part大多數/大部分, windows aren't good insulators絕緣體/隔熱體. They leak heat in the winter冬天流失熱氣, and let heat in during the summer夏天引進熱氣(造成冬冷夏熱). Many homes still have single-pane windows單片玻璃 which, as this promotional film宣傳片 explains, were the name of the game主流/才是王道 during the post-World War II building boom.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Entire walls of glass take advantage of California's sunshine. And glass walls like these are cheaper to construct and maintain, since this California climate makes insulation unnecessary.

SOMMER: Of course, insulation is necessary, as the country found out when energy prices skyrocketed飆高 in the 1970s. Double-pane windows became common, and then came double-pane windows with invisible coatings隱形的塗層, which are twice as efficient. Today, they make up占了 more than half of windows sold. At a hardware store五金行, these are labeled low-e windows節能窗.

When sunlight shines through a window, it provides both light and heat. Most of us want light coming in. But heat is the last thing we want on a hot summer day.

GOUDEY: If you have a few windows in a room with direct sun on them, it's equivalent to等同於 running a little space heater暖氣.

SOMMER: So this coating blocks阻隔 the heat from the sun while letting in the light. But here's the problem: On a cold winter day, that extra heat from the sun would be helpful.

GOUDEY: You'd actually like that solar energy太陽能 to come in and help heat the space. So that motivates the idea of a dynamic window多功能窗.

DR. DELIA MILLIRON: This is Wanda, our robot that makes nanocrystals奈米晶.

SOMMER: At the lab's Molecular Foundry分子鑄造廠, Delia Milliron is developing a smart window, a window that can change based on the weather可以按照氣候而改變功能的窗戶.

MILLIRON: So nanocrystals are very small. That's why, when we spread them out in a coating on the window, you don't see anything.

SOMMER: In one setting在某一個特定的測試環境下, the coating lets in the light and the heat from the sun. But apply a small electric current...

MILLIRON: It's only a couple of volts伏特, so that - what you can get from a normal battery.

SOMMER: That's enough to change the charge of the nanocrystals so they block the heat from the sun, but not the light.

Milliron says ideally, these windows would be controlled by your heating and cooling system這些窗戶可以配合家中的空調來運作. That means windows could make buildings more efficient instead of being the energy losers they've always been.

All that lost energy costs money, says Stephen Selkowitz, head of building technologies at Berkeley Lab.

STEPHEN SELKOWITZ: It costs homeowners about $40 billion四百億 a year. And I'd rather have the 40 billion in my pocket在我的荷包裡 than sort of sending it out the window.

SOMMER: Selkowitz says smart windows could be widely available in as little as three years. But they won't be cheap - possibly twice as much as today's windows. The cost should come down as manufacturing ramps up. 產量上衝 And one day, smart windows could be written into buildings codes智慧窗戶將成為所有建築的標準配備, where the technology would have a much broader impact影響力.

For NPR News, I'm Lauren Sommer in San Francisco.