Can replaced and reformed glass in your windows and windshields reduce energy requirements of the cooling system in a big rig truck?
The answer is easy: yes.
The glass used in big rig truck windshields and windows is now able to be replaced with advanced solar control glass.
This glass can provide the additional advantage of increasing range–and reducing range anxiety–in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid-electric vehicles (HEV) as well. The glass reduces the heavy usage of air conditioning, which frees up more energy to run the vehicle. The technology is said to offer the same benefits to off-highway equipment and heavy trucks and buses.
The design of the glass is meant to reduce the solar heat load on the big rig truck, which reduces the workload of the vehicle’s air conditioning. When equipped with advanced solar control windows, the inner truck temperature during boot can be up to 20° F lower than vehicles without the technology. Dashboard temp can actually be 26 degrees cooler, while the windshield itself is 36 degrees cooler.
Core temperature of the battery can be reduced through this technology as well, which could help extend the life of EV / HEV batteries. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) tests revealed a hybrid vehicle equipped with an advanced solar control glass technology reduced temperature of the battery base up to 6.3° F over that without the glass glazing.
All in all, an improvement of up to 30% during heavy A/C seasons was shown for those electric vehicles equipped with solar control glass.
Laminated glass is normally 10% lighter than an equivalent thickness of tempered glass. So increasing the sun protection function of this glass does not add any measurable weight of the laminated glass.
Other benefits of this glass include increased resistance to intrusion and noise reduction. Its use in side windows reduces interior noise by up to 3 dB, as well.
It is hoped that there will be high participation rates in this new glass for electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles, not to mention big rig trucks.