Battery glass and smart windows: what will the first glass processing plant in the Far East look like?

In just a few years, the architectural appearance of Blagoveshchensk and the entire Amur region may be enriched with new interesting facades and solutions - the region will have its own curved glass and windows with color printing. All this will be produced by a new glass processing plant, which is starting to be built in Blagoveshchensk. There are no analogues to such production in the Far East today. An investor will be able to implement a large-scale project thanks to the ASEZ regime, launched on the initiative of President Vladimir Putin. What it will be like and what the region will receive - in the material of Amurskaya Pravda.

Serious rework

“You press a button and the window becomes frosted. Press it again and it turns into a regular window with transparent glass,” Oleg Basmanov, CEO of the Home Master group of companies, talks about smart glass, which is now popular to install in open-space offices and on the first floors of apartment buildings. For the Far East, a smart window is almost exotic: now it is imported from the western part of Russia or from abroad. However, in a few years, such products will be available in Blagoveshchensk: it is here, in the area of Promyshlennaya and Zagorodnaya streets, that a glass processing plant will appear.

— When we talk about glass production, we need to understand that several industries are involved in this chain. There are those who produce sheet glass from sand. We do not plan to do this: the Far Eastern market does not consume enough products to load the capacity of an entire plant. We will do the processing,” explains Oleg Basmanov. — This is the production of tempered glass, triplex (laminated glass. — Ed.), curved glass, and so on. We are doing some of the work today. However, the new plant will take glass processing to a new level, which has not yet been represented in the Far East.

Industry development

An investor cannot be called a newcomer to the glass industry market: this year the Home Master company turns 30 years old. And all these years it has been producing windows and glass not only for the Amur region, but also for other regions. The company began with the production of simple white metal-plastic windows, and at the same time a reinforcement line was opened. The fact is that inside the plastic in the frames of MPO (metal-plastic windows) there is a metal amplifier. “We purchased metalworking machines, buy metal rolls and make them ourselves,” notes Oleg Basmanov. “This way we control the quality, optimize the process and reduce the cost of windows.”

The director emphasizes: they have always been innovators in this market. In 2016, we were the first in the region to start making colored frames.

*"The glass market of the Far East is 15 years behind the West of Russia, according to experts in this industry".

— Before this, if you wanted a non-white frame, you had to order plastic from the factory and wait several months. We purchased a lamination line and now offer more than 200 options for films for wood, marble, graphite, and so on. A little later, we purchased a painting booth and now we can paint the frame in any color,” emphasizes the head of the company. — When we first started, many said: why invest so much money, it won’t be in mass demand. And today 80 percent of orders from Amur developers are windows with colored frames.

The company regularly invests in process automation. “The modern line practically eliminates the human factor. Now a plastic stick is simply placed on a conveyor, and then everything is done by the production line in accordance with the parameters set by the operator. By the way, the corners of the frame are welded on four sides at the same time: the device simply will not work if the geometry is not perfectly aligned, explains Oleg Basmanov. — How they used to make a window: a person took a plastic stick, sawed off the required size for the frame on a saw, then used a pencil to mark the holes that needed to be drilled. Then he went to the welding machine, where he welded the corners one by one. I marked it incorrectly, made a slight mistake when welding - the geometry of the window is disrupted, and this significantly affects its operation.”

The development of the glass industry is also spurred by a construction boom: companies compete with each other and fight for customers. Now clients will not be satisfied with a simple white double-glazed window - developers are purchasing windows of increased thickness, with expensive fittings, panoramic windows, with designer painted frames, and so on. The largest investors also make their demands on the glass industry. For example, a cable car terminal will require glass measuring more than five meters, and with a pattern. And they must be hardened. Tribune Hall, new airport building - modern design solutions require appropriate materials. At the same time, importing glass from the western part of Russia is expensive and difficult: the material is fragile.

TOR in the city

The desire to automate and modernize production, as well as modern trends in architecture, led the company’s management to the idea of building its own glass processing plant in the region: the company’s site was no longer enough.

“We knew about the TOP regime, and when the need arose to produce our own products, the opportunity to receive preferences largely influenced the decision to build a plant,” notes the company’s general director. — Help from the state here is serious: tax benefits for 10 years, provision of land, assistance in connecting communications. Taking into account the fact that the implementation of the project will require hundreds of millions of rubles, the preferences of the ASEZ are significant support.”

One of the subsidiaries became a resident of the ASEZ. The location in the city was not chosen by chance: firstly, it is located next to the company’s existing workshops.

Secondly, the roads for transporting glass plates that arrive by rail to the plant must be of good quality. After all, special transport is used for transportation from the railway station. The region met the investor halfway and made a site in the regional center a priority development area - a rarity for a priority development area.

It took about a year to change the purpose of the land: today the site is ready for construction, and a contract has been signed for the production of metal structures for the future plant building. At all stages, the project was supported by the Amur Region Investment Promotion Agency. In early April, builders will begin driving the first piles; the company hopes to build the box by the end of the year. According to plans, the purchase of equipment will begin in 2025, and production itself will start in 2026.

“It was not easy to understand what kind of plant needed to be built: there are not many such plants in Russia, and each new one is a competitor to the existing ones, so no one gave advice,” explains Oleg Basmanov. — We studied options, looked at market trends, and the experience of the western regions of Russia.

As a result, the new plant will provide the entire Far East with glass that today can only be purchased in western Russia. The first is different types of tempered glass. Their main advantage is safety. Firstly, such glass is seven times stronger than ordinary glass, and secondly, if it is broken, it crumbles into crumbs: this minimizes the risk to humans. In addition, the plant will produce triplex - tempered sheets of glass, between which a film is soldered. Even if you break it, it will not crumble, but will remain in the frame on the film, albeit in the form of crumbs. Only such glass, for example, can be used for glass roofs.

The new plant will also produce bent glass. It is used for facades: in this case, the wall of the building can bend in an arc, and the double-glazed window will follow its shape. In addition, in the West, this glass is actively used for interior design glazing: for example, for partitions, and even in furniture production. Another direction is ceramic glass painting.

Smart and warm

Another new product is the production of smart glass. Such a window or partition can be either transparent or matte: it all depends on which mode its owner chooses. Modes can be changed using the remote control. The effect is achieved through an electrochromic film based on liquid crystals, which is soldered between two glasses. When turned off, the crystals are randomly located in the film: the glass is frosted. When an electrical signal arrives, the particles become parallel to the electric field and thus, as it were, “part”, allowing light to pass through. The glass becomes transparent. “We still install such partitions and windows, but we import smart glass from other regions. We plan to try the production of smart windows at the existing production, and at the plant we will be able to take it to a new level,” notes Oleg Basmanov.

* "In recent years, glass with colored frames has been increasingly used in the Amur region. The top contains gray shades: from anthracite to graphite".

Another option for glass that is relevant for our climate is heated glass. It is used for both residential buildings and industrial facilities. Heating elements are applied to the glass, and the degree of heating can be controlled using the remote control. “For example, the walls of control towers should be glass, and at the same time they should not be covered with snow. In such cases, heated glass is used,” notes Oleg Basmanov. “By the way, we did exactly this kind of work for the Blagoveshchensk airport, but again we imported glass.” Such windows can become no less popular in the apartments of Amur residents.

The fact is that the thickness of windows is always less than the walls. And even if the window is closed hermetically and does not allow cold air to pass through, the double-glazed window holds out the cold worse than the walls. And if in a nursery, for example, a student’s desk or bed is located next to a window, the heating of the glass will help neutralize the coolness that the child may feel.

The new plant will have equipment that will make it possible to make holes in glass, cut a product of any shape from a glass base: relevant for glass doors, canopies, and so on. Today specialists do this manually, but an automated machine will eliminate the human factor and speed up the process. The plant will also be able to make frosted glass. “A special printer will apply ceramic paint, which, under the influence of temperature, will be baked into the glass base. As a result, such glass painting will last forever and will not be erased over years of use,” says the investor.

Cleaner production

An important condition for the operation of glass factories is the sterile cleanliness of individual workshops. “For example, in the workshops for the production of triplex and painting, the conditions will be like in operating rooms; people in special suits and gloves will have to work,” says Oleg Basmanov. “After all, if even a speck of dust gets between the glasses during baking, it will remain there forever, and it will no longer be possible to get it out.” The investor plans to minimize the human factor.

“Of course, we will not launch all production lines in one year, but in the end we will come to the point that the Far East will no longer have to import most glass products from the west of Russia: we plan to satisfy the demand of the entire Far Eastern Federal District,” says the investor.

Vasily Orlov, governor of the Amur region:

— So far there is no such production in the entire Far East, and the demand is high given the constant increase in the number of construction projects. At the moment, we are forced to purchase such glass in other regions. Amur developers alone need more than two million tons of glass per year when constructing offices, shopping centers and housing. The new enterprise will be able not only to satisfy the needs of our companies, but also to supply products to other regions of the Far Eastern Federal District and will satisfy the internal market demand. Today, the Far Eastern Federal District needs high-quality and affordable building materials from local manufacturers; businesses manage to solve these problems with the support of the state.