Englert’s Solar Sandwich Takes Architect Magazine Award In Fifth Annual R&D Awards Competition

Oct. 27, 2011 - PRLog -- The Englert Solar Sandwich, combining the beauty and durability of a standing seam metal roof system with rooftop solar photovoltaic laminates and an under-roof solar thermal system, has been cited by Architect magazine for  innovation in building design.  

Judges assessing entries in the magazine’s fifth annual R&D design competition characterized the Solar Sandwich as “The holy grail for adding photovoltaics (PV) to a building…. making them blend in to the point of obscurity.”

Said the magazine’s editors, “The Solar Sandwich… struck judges for just that reason: It is designed to look like any of the company’s other standing-seam roofing systems. Metal panels topped with thin PV laminates conceal a solar thermal system (made by Dawn Solar Systems).”

The discreet, surface-mounted PVs generate electricity, but also absorb heat, which is directed into the solar thermal system underneath. Using a closed-loop system of tubes filled with glycol-enhanced water, energy is transferred from the roof to a conventional heating system where it is used to warm the building and provide hot water.

What most impressed Juror William Massie, architecture department head at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, was the level of integration with the roof system. It looks “so much not like anything,” he says—“in a good way.”

The Englert Solar Sandwich can reduce heat and electric bills anywhere from 20 to 80 percent and is eligible for more than 20 LEED credits. For more information on this solar technology and its applications, go to http://www.architectmagazine.com/solar-power/solar-sandwi... or call 1-800-englert.