Solar passive building cooling - Recent trends and novel approaches

Abstract

Global warming is one of the major threats that mankind faces in the 21th century. About 40% of global energy consumption and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions are accounted by buildings and they play a vital role in global warming. Estimates show that their damaging influence will grow by 1.8% per year through 2050, which specifies that future usage and emissions will be worse than today. Therefore, the necessity of cooling systems cannot be ignored, as they, along with ventilation and heating systems, measures for 60% of the energy consumed in buildings. Passive cooling methods are dominating alternative to conventional cooling systems. Of the various passive cooling strategies, thermal energy storage by means of latent heat is an efficient way to increase the thermal inertia of building envelopes, which would reduce temperature fluctuations, leading to the improved thermal comfort of occupants. Phase change materials (PCMs) with high density for thermal energy storage can be efficiently employed to this purpose. This paper narrates the recent applications of PCMs for passive cooling in buildings.