Scott Thomsen of LuxWall: 5 Questions

Scott Thomsen founded LuxWall, a Michigan-based technology company that manufacturers transparent insulated glass, in 2017 with the goal of eliminating what’s often the weakest link in office building construction — poorly insulated windows.

Thomsen’s goal is to significantly reduce all buildings’ energy consumption and carbon emissions by installing thermal insulated windows equivalent to a standard insulated wall. In the CEO’s words, “buildings have insulated walls and uninsulated windows.”

LuxWall’s glass — which offers R-18 thermal insulation performance, or roughly five times more insulation than standard double-pane glass — is already being installed in at least five office and residential buildings in New York City, as well as several other projects across the U.S.

Most recently, LuxWall was chosen in April to do a major project at Global Holdings’ 39-story office tower at 1250 Broadway in Midtown South. LuxWall is currently working to replace more than 2,000 legacy single-pane windows at the building with transparent insulation, creating what Global Holdings described as a scalable path for owners to both comply with New York City’s  carbon-cutting Local Law 97  and to add another benefit to better compete for tenants. 

Commercial Observer sat down with Thomsen in April to discuss LuxWall’s current projects and how the company is working to combat major energy consumption and carbon emissions problems at buildings across the country.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Commercial Observer: How did you create the idea for LuxWall? What was the motivation behind it? 

Scott Thomsen: When you start a company, you have to solve a big problem, because, if you want to get investors, it has to have a big impact. So, when you look at building skins, the walls are already very insulated. I always go back to this corny phrase that “buildings have insulated walls and uninsulated windows.” I started this to tackle that problem, to make windows insulate like walls — opaque walls.

That was really what drove me to do this, because you’ve got to solve a big problem that has mega trends. And what I mean by a mega trend is you’ve got rising energy costs globally. You have grid strain, and buildings are roughly 40 percent of the energy draw. 

The other mega trend is that in certain parts of the world, embodied carbon and operating carbon is very important. And in New York with Local Law 97, you now have carbon penalties coming. So there’s enough mega trends there that are going to give you some tailwinds.

I have had the luxury of touching many different industries. I learned a lot of what was going on in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) television manufacturing, battery storage, current retention. It all came together in 2019, about the right time.

Tell me a little bit about LuxWall’s new project with Global Holdings at 1250 Broadway.

We approached Global Holdings and said, “OK, you’re going to spend 50 to 60 percent less on capital. You’re going to save 30 to 40 percent on your energy. You don’t have to displace your tenants. And you’re going to get improved sound.” 

They said, “OK, what’s the catch?” Well, the catch is we’re a newer company. So what was great about Global Holdings is that Ian Morrell, who runs their operations, had the foresight and the vision of what this could be.

When they looked at it, they were going to spend upward of eight figures to put all-new windows in. But with our approach, it’s 50 to 60 percent less capital. We did a mockup and the results were very good. Once they got the results, they said, “Wow, this is an acceptable payback.” And then they moved forward.

I was there last week with key people from the company. We were using thermal imaging cameras, and you easily see the temperature difference on the glass. But I think what was more important, we would talk to people that were working in the building, and they said it’s a huge difference, both in comfort and sound. That’s what’s so great about Global Holdings is they gave us a platform on a 39-story building to prove the technology.

The project is underway right now. They’re glazing, and I believe the building will be glazed by the end of June.

How have you been working with state and local governments to adjust LEED certifications for these office buildings?

It’s been a challenge, because it even starts at the Department of Energy level, because all the window modeling tools were developed 20 to 30 years ago. There’s the general improvement of thermal and whole-building energy modeling, which impacts the utility companies like Con Edison and Eversource, because they structure their rebates, and now the rebate structures need to change. 

We’ve been through that with Con Edison. Then the next thing is now you need to get the city to understand both the operational savings — whether it’s steam, electricity, fuel oil, whatever the fuel source is — and then how do you reassess LEED? Because LEED was based on installing R-3 to R-6 windows, and now you have our R-18. 

It seems like a major growing concern for these huge, glass office buildings in New York City is extreme heat, and how it’s creating bad conditions for not just the buildings themselves, but also the workers inside. How are you working to address that problem?

I was just visiting 1250 Broadway. What people don’t realize is that it was roughly 84 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit outside that day, but the interior glass temperature of the existing glass was like 115 degrees. Because what happens is the glass absorbs heat, it builds up, and then it re-radiates inside.

In Phoenix, for example, last summer, we had an installation, and it was 115 degrees outside, and the existing glass was almost 140 degrees because a lot of times you’re going to see a 30-degree heat rise due to the absorption. … We have a low-emissivity coating that rejects the incoming solar heat gain, but then, kind of like a thermos bottle, we’re keeping the cool air inside the building so it doesn’t escape out. We were at another project where we talked to someone that was sitting by these windows, where they had changed ours out, and they couldn’t believe the difference.

They build these glass buildings, and the people inside are like ants that get burnt through glass. It’s kind of like we’re burning people in these buildings.

How do you expect artificial intelligence to play a role in the company’s work?

AI is becoming very important in manufacturing. We’re using more and more AI tools to produce the product with better quality, better consistency and lower cost. And, to me, that’s really important in the built environment, because our purpose is energy efficiency for all. I came up with that phrase six years ago when I started this because I didn’t want to build a product that was just for McMansions, you know — I wanted this product to go into low-income housing that people in cities need. We’re using AI in the factory as much as we can in a way that makes sense to help get more efficient and get costs down.

Now, when we go to the built environment, I think AI is going to help immensely with whole-building energy modeling. I think it’s going to become much easier for property owners to model the effects of LuxWall and transparent insulation.

We’ve actually talked to a company that’s making low Earth orbit infrared imaging satellites. So we’ll take satellite data that is infrared imagery of buildings. And now we can start taking actual leakage data from the building. We take energy modeling, and now use an AI algorithm to basically accurately model the building over the course of a year, in a full climate cycle, and then how we will impact that.

Because, to me, the key for us is to accelerate deployment, and the best way is through tools, because if we have to do a pilot mockup on every building, it’s just slowing down forward progress.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.