ENERGY SAVINGS FROM WINDOW SHADES

The report evaluates the energy impact of Hunter Douglas insulating honeycomb shades using whole-building simulations in nine U.S. cities. It finds that these shades can significantly reduce heating and cooling energy consumption, particularly in existing homes, while improving operative temperatures and reducing peak electrical demand. The study emphasizes that savings are highly dependent on the operation schedule and window orientation, with west-facing windows being critical for peak demand reduction in summer.

• Insulating honeycomb shades can significantly reduce residential energy use, with existing homes seeing larger savings than new homes. In cooling-dominated climates, the savings for existing homes are more than triple those of new homes in absolute terms.
• The maximum annual energy bill savings for a 2,400 square foot home using Trielle production fit shades operated on the Green Mode schedule vary by city: for new homes, savings range from $60 in San Francisco to $180 in Phoenix and Washington D.C.; for existing homes, they range from $260 in Anchorage to $830 in Phoenix.
• Operation schedules are critical to performance; in Denver, keeping shades always closed can actually increase heating energy by blocking passive solar gain, while the Green Mode schedule improves heating but reduces cooling savings by half compared to a fully optimized thermal schedule.
• Window orientation significantly impacts cooling savings. In Denver, east and west windows provide approximately twice the cooling benefit of north or south windows because they block direct morning and evening solar heat gain.
• In Denver, shading west-facing windows is the primary driver for reducing peak electricity demand during summer afternoon hours.
• The shades improve thermal comfort by affecting the operative temperature. In Denver, they can reduce the perceived summer temperature by 2°F and increase the perceived winter temperature by 1°F.
• The use of Trielle production fit shades in Denver can reduce peak electricity demand by 0.3 kW (9%) for new homes and 0.9 kW (15%) for existing homes.
• High-performance window shades may allow for the downsizing of air-conditioning equipment. In existing Denver homes, the design cooling load could be reduced by approximately 0.5 tons.
• In some scenarios, installing insulating shades can provide more annual energy savings than replacing windows with IECC 2012 compliant windows because shades can be raised to allow winter solar gain while providing a higher R-value when closed.

APA

RMI (2015). ENERGY SAVINGS FROM WINDOW SHADES. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/EnergySavingsFromWindowShades_FinalWebReport.pdf

Chicago

RMI. ENERGY SAVINGS FROM WINDOW SHADES. 2015. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/EnergySavingsFromWindowShades_FinalWebReport.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=ENERGY SAVINGS FROM WINDOW SHADES |date=10 October 2015 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/EnergySavingsFromWindowShades_FinalWebReport.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2015energy, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{ENERGY SAVINGS FROM WINDOW SHADES}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2015}, month = oct, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/EnergySavingsFromWindowShades_FinalWebReport.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }