KSD Solar Diode Window: Keep Heat Where You Want It
These "Solar Diode" windows from Germany company KSD have apparently been around since the late '80s, but I wasn't familiar with them. The concept is simple: a layer of insulated glass reflects heat. The whole window is mounted so that it can be flipped around—towards the outside in the hot summer, towards the inside in the winter.
Of course they work best when installed in a home, not in an featureless wasteland.
A Window that Can Both Heat and Cool your Home [Freshome.com via Materialicious via Leed Pro]
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I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think these are probably useless. In order to make them work, they're going to require a great deal more material and a lot more precision. Otherwise, they'll be prone to leaks and drafts. I'd think that a stock, fewer moving parts, fewer seals and openings argon-filled low-e window will not only be less likely to fail, but will cost enough less that over the lifetime of the window, you wouldn't save any money. And I'll bet the lifetime of that plain old window is longer than our friend the transformer.
Thermal conduction is the same in one direction as in its opposite.
Imagine a window that lets heat pass one way only, between two identical heat sinks. One heat sink would warm up spontaneously, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
I call Steorn.
Sure, as you said, "thermal conduction is the same in one direction as in its opposite". But not thermal RADIATION. I think it is quite clear how Low-Emission glasses works. Not by avoiding transmission, but working on reflection of certain radiations (short wave infra red radiation.
Xevi Prat (Barcelona, CATALUNYA)