Sage Electrochromics, has been offered $72m loan guarantee by the US Department of Energy (DOE). Coupled with the $31m Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit, which Sage was awarded earlier this year, the company has now secured over $100m in federal funding that will be used to establish a facility for the manufacture of energy-saving electronically tintable glass.
The company claims that the glass will make buildings more energy efficient and will create new green manufacturing and construction jobs.
Sage has used nanotechnology to develop the electronically tintable glass for use in buildings. The eco-friendly dynamic windows can change tint to regulate sunlight, similar to the way transition lenses work in sunglasses and can be controlled electronically; they can be switched from clear to darkly tinted at the click of a button, or programmed to respond to changing sunlight and heat conditions, the company said.
In addition, windows using SageGlass technology control the amount of sunlight that enters a building, reducing energy consumed for air conditioning, heating and lighting. The company will tap the DOE funding to build a high-volume manufacturing plant next to its headquarters in Faribault, Minnesota, ramping up production for commercial, institutional and residential applications.
The company claimed that the technology, in addition to providing energy savings, also enhances occupant comfort and productivity by preserving their connection to the outdoors.
The facility is expected to add 160 full-time green manufacturing and technology jobs to the 100 jobs in Sage’s current plant in southern Minnesota. More than 200 construction jobs will also be created.
A study by Deloitte Consulting concluded the plant will add a total of nearly 400 permanent jobs to the area’s economy. Groundbreaking is scheduled for summer of 2010, and the plant will be shipping its SageGlass product in the latter part of 2011.
The DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), which has been evaluating Sage’s products for more than a decade, considers electrochromic glazing to be a major advance in energy-efficient technology, helping to transform windows from an energy liability in buildings to an energy source.
According to LBNL, SageGlass windows have the potential to reduce building heating and air conditioning equipment requirements by up to 25%, resulting in construction and maintenance cost savings.
LBNL also estimates that SageGlass products will reduce cooling loads by up to 20%, lower peak power demand by 26%, and reduce lighting costs by up to 60%.
Dane Gillaspie, a research scientist at National Renewable Energy Laboratory said that widespread use of smart window technologies like Sage’s could save about one-eighth of all the energy used by buildings in the US every year, equivalent to about 5% of the nation’s total energy budget.
In addition to the new DOE support, Sage has received over $45m in investment financing over the past three years. Investors include Good Energies, Applied Ventures and Bekaert.