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Innovation

The growing smart glass market

Analysts predict growth in the smart glass market.
Written by Amy Kraft, Weekend Editor

Smart glass is a unique type of material used in windows that is able to electronically control glare and heat. It is primarily used in architecture and transportation, privacy glass and museum artwork expositions.

As a result of new production capacity entering the market within the year, production costs will go down, allowing the sector grow.

A new report from Pike Research predicts that smart glass production could become a nearly $700 million area of the flat glass market by 2020, eight time more than it’s worth today.

“High-performance buildings require a level of control over energy that many of today’s automation systems are only now starting to address,” senior analyst Eric Bloom said in a statement. “Smart glass is an innovative technology that both provides building owners unprecedented control over solar heat gain and offers a visually impressive alternative to flat glass.”

North America and Europe are expected to take the lead in this growth, but researchers also see the potential for a lot of growth in China, where a building boom is now underway.

And as more people start to adopt green building standards, industry will look to smart glass to address these needs. "This class of high-performance glazing products offers significant energy efficiency, aesthetic, and user comfort and wellbeing benefits as compared to conventional 'static' glazing," Pike says.

To learn more about the report, visit Pike Research.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

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