*4.3. Cost Considerations*

The ideal project for these advanced facades would be a large tower-type office building with limited site access. The facade should consist of repetitive geometry that can be divided easily into panels. The system would not be fit to have movable windows, so special modules for openings and mechanical ventilation systems are required. A literature review was carried out to assess the cost and the performance of advanced facades [44–46]. The unit costs of the components included the material, production, and assembly costs. These values are the average of the unit costs taken from two different passive curtain wall systems [47]. The cost analysis for the WFG-unitized facade considered a triple glass described in Case 2, the total estimated costs for aluminum production, module fabrication, on-site transportation, and facade assembly. The energy values were calculated with the indoor and outdoor temperatures shown in Figures 9 and 10 for sample summer and winter days, respectively. The energy parameters and construction costs calculated for all the alternatives are shown in Table 8.



<sup>1</sup> Values taken from [47].

The initial costs of the WFG made up of the triple glazing, the circulating device, and the unitized aluminum frames were high, compared to passive glazing systems. However, a holistic approach should include energy savings, energy production, and CO2 emissions. The total final energy consumption was 3.06 kWh/m<sup>2</sup> for the standard triple-glazed lightweight enclosure and 1.24 kWh/m2 for the WFG. When it came to CO2 emissions, the standard curtain wall solution would account for 2.5 times as much CO2 as the studied WFG.
