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Abstract Electrochromic smart windows (ESWs) are an effective energy‐saving technology for near‐zero energy buildings. They consume electric energy unidirectionally during a round‐trip coloring‐bleaching process, with the energy involved in the bleaching process being wasted. It is highly desirable to reuse this wasted electric energy directly and/or transfer it into other energy storage equipment, further enhancing the overall efficiency of electric energy usage. Herein, a zinc anode‐based ESW (ESW‐PZ) is reported that not only has fascinating visible–near‐infrared (VIS‐NIR) dual‐band electrochromic performance (a high optical contrast of 63%) but also showcases good energy storage characteristics (a wide voltage window of 2.6 V and a high energy density of 127.5 µWh cm −2 ). The buildings utilizing ESW‐PZ to modulate indoor environments demonstrated an average annual energy saving of 366 MJ m −2 based on energy simulations, which is about 16% of the total energy consumption. Impressively, a high utilization efficiency of 90% (855 mWh m −2 ) of the wasted electric energy is realized through an ingenious circuit‐switching strategy, which can be reused to power small household appliances.
Xie et al. (Mon,) studied this question.