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Passive solar design is a building method that takes advantage of the sun’s energy for heating, cooling,
and illuminating spaces. It requires only minimal, if any, maintenance, is very aesthetically pleasing and
lowers energy costs.
DEFINITION
Passive solar design refers to the use of the sun’s energy for the heating and cooling of living
spaces. In this approach, the building itself or some element of it takes advantage of natural
energy characteristics in materials and air created by exposure to the sun. Passive systems are
simple, have few moving parts, and require minimal maintenance and require no mechanical
systems.
Operable windows, thermal mass, and thermal chimneys are common elements found in passive
design. Operable windows are simply windows that can be opened. Thermal mass refers to
materials such as masonry and water that can store heat energy for extended time. Thermal
mass will prevent rapid temperature fluctuations. Thermal chimneys create or reinforce the effect
hot air rising to induce air movement for cooling purposes.
Wing walls are vertical exterior wall partitions placed perpendicular to adjoining windows to
enhance ventilation through windows.
CONSIDERATIONS:
Passive design is practiced throughout the world and has been shown to produce buildings with
low energy costs, reduced maintenance, and superior comfort. Most of the literature pertaining to
passive solar technology addresses heating concerns. This information is useful and relevant in
our area; however, cooling issues, which are equally important in Austin, are less well
documented. Key aspects of passive design include appropriate solar orientation, the use of
thermal mass, and appropriate ventilation and window placement.
Consideration of high humidity is a key issue in Austin. For example, a basic passive cooling
strategy is to permit cooler night air to ventilate a house and cool down the thermal mass (this
can be brick, stone, or concrete walls or floors, or large water containers) inside the house. The
thermal mass will absorb heat during the day; however, excessive humidity will reduce the
cooling effect from the cooler thermal mass. Interior design elements of a home in our region
also play a strong role in the effectiveness of passive cooling. For example, carpets, drapes, and
fabric-covered furniture will absorb moisture from humid air, forcing the air conditioner to work
harder to remove humidity.
As a design approach, passive solar design can take many forms. It can be integrated to greater
or lesser degrees in a building. Key considerations regarding passive design are determined by
the characteristics of the building site. The most effective designs are based on specific
understanding of a building site’s wind patterns, terrain, vegetation, solar exposure and other
factors often requiring professional architectural services. However, a basic understanding of
these issues can have a significant effect on the energy performance of a building.
Commercial Implementation
Status Issues
T A R
S F
E C E
U I
C C G
P N
H C E U
P A
N O P L
L N
O S T A
I C
L T A T
E I
O N O
R N
G C R
S G
Y E Y
Operable Windows
Thermal Mass
Wing Walls
Thermal Chimney
Satisfactory
Satisfactory in most
conditions
Satisfactory in Limited
Conditions
Unsatisfactory or Difficult
IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
FINANCING:
There is not a financing issue unless the house does not include mechanical cooling. Lenders feel
that the resale value of a home is reduced if mechanical cooling is not present.
PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE:
There is a basic understanding and acceptance in regards to passive heating among a large
number of persons who have relocated here from colder regions. Passive cooling approaches are
not well known.
REGULATORY:
According to the Energy Code, there are limitations on the amount of glass a building can have
(25% if double-pane). It is normally not necessary to exceed that amount in order to achieve
significant passive solar energy in Austin. However, this amount can be exceeded if an approved
computer analysis shows that more glass will improve the energy use pattern in the building.
GUIDELINES
1.0 Passive Solar Design Introduction
Solar energy is a radiant heat source that causes natural processes upon which all life depends.
Some of the natural processes can be managed through building design in a manner that helps
heat and cool the building. The basic natural processes that are used in passive solar energy are
the thermal energy flows associated with radiation, conduction, and natural convection. When
sunlight strikes a building, the building materials can reflect, transmit, or absorb the solar
radiation. Additionally, the heat produced by the sun causes air movement that can be
predictable in designed spaces. These basic responses to solar heat lead to design elements,
material choices and placements that can provide heating and cooling effects in a home.
Passive solar energy means that mechanical means are not employed to utilize solar energy.
Figure 2
Thermal Mass Wall or Trombe Wall Day and Night Operation
Operable vents at the top and bottom of a thermal storage wall permit heat to convect from
between the wall and the glass into the living space. When the vents are closed at night radiant
heat from the wall heats the living space.
2.3.2 Roof pond systems
Six to twelve inches of water are contained on a flat roof.
This system is best for cooling in low humidity climates but can be modified to work in high
humidity climates. (Effectively provides heat in southern U.S. latitudes during the heating season
for one story or upper stories of buildings.)
Water is usually stored in large plastic or fiberglass containers covered by glazing and the space
below is warmed by radiant heat from the warm water above.
These require somewhat elaborate drainage systems, movable insulation to cover and uncover
the water at appropriate times, and a structural system to support up to 65 lbs/sq ft dead load.
2.3.3 Indirect gain system rules of thumb for thermal storage walls
The exterior of the mass wall (toward the sun) should be a dark color.
Use a minimum space of 4 inches between the thermal mass wall and the glass.
Vents used in a thermal mass wall must be closed at night.
A well insulated home (7-9 BTU/day-sq. ft.-degree F) will require approximately 0.20 square feet
of thermal mass wall per square foot of floor area or 0.15 square foot of water wall.
If movable night insulation will be used in the thermal wall system, reduce the thermal mass wall
area by 15%.
Thermal wall thickness should be approximately 10-14 inches for brick, 12-18 inches for
concrete, 8-12 inches for adobe or other earth material and at least 6 inches for water.
Figure 4
Top View of Wing Walls Airflow Pattern
Wing walls will accelerate the natural wind speed due to pressure differences created by the wing
wall.
Figure 5
Summer Venting Thermal Mass Wall
Thermal mass indirect gain walls can be made to function similarly except that the mass wall
should be insulated on the inside when performing this function.
Figure 6
Thermal Chimney
Thermal chimneys can be constructed in a narrow configuration (like a chimney) with an easily
heated black metal absorber on the inside behind a glazed front that can reach high
temperatures and be insulated from the house. The chimney must terminate above the roof
level. A rotating metal scoop at the top which opens opposite the wind will allow heated air to
exhaust without being overcome by the prevailing wind.
Thermal chimney effects can be integrated into the house with open stairwells and atria. (This
approach can be an aesthetic plus to the home as well.)
3.1.3 Other Ventilation Strategies
• Make the outlet openings slightly larger than the inlet openings.
• Place the inlets at low to medium heights to provide airflow at occupant levels in the
room.
Figure 7
Thermal Chimney Effect Built into Home
Inlets close to a wall result in air “washing” along the wall. Be certain to have centrally located
inlets for air movement in the center areas of the room.
Window insect screens decrease the velocity of slow breezes more than stronger breezes (60%
decrease at 1.5 mph, 28% decrease at 6 mph). Screening a porch will not reduce air speeds as
much as screening the windows.
Night ventilation of a home should be done at a ventilation rate of 30 air changes per hour or
greater. Mechanical ventilation will usually be required to achieve this (See Fan Section).
High mass houses can be cooled with night ventilation providing that fabric furnishings are
minimized in the house.
Keep a high mass house closed during the day and opened at night.
Solar Energy
Increasingly, the term "solar technology" is being used to include any renewable energy system that directly or
indirectly depends on the sun for energy. This includes waterpower, biogas, and wood fuels, for example, which are
covered in separate chapters. This chapter is therefore concerned with direct use of solar energy.
Probably the most significant direct solar technology for the South is that of crop drying, which is covered in the
section CROP DRYING, PRESERVATION AND STORAGE. Solar distillation for water purification has been covered
in the WATER SUPPLY section.
On this page you will find materials on passive solar architecture for house heating, passive solar cooking for the
tropics, solar greenhouses, water heaters, cookers, irrigation pumps, and photovoltaic cells. A good general survey of
the technologies that may some day have relevance for the South can be found in Technology for Solar Energy
Utilization; most of these, however, are not economically competitive at present.
Several publications on passive solar architecture, now a booming field in the United States, are included. Passive
solar design involves careful choices of building orientation, layout, location of glass windows, and materials to best
take advantage of natural energy flows. Because they minimize the use of costly primary fuels for space heating and
cooling, passive solar buildings will eventually dominate new construction in much of the United States. In North
America and the other parts of the temperate zones, heating is usually the primary design objective. This is also true
in parts of the Himalayas, the Andes, and other mountainous regions, where indigenous structures often reflect
certain passive solar principles. In these areas of the South there is the potential for new applications of' recent
advances in the field..By contrast, the cooling of living spaces is the primary objective of passive solar design in the
tropics. Elements of Solar Architecture for Tropical Regions and Design for Climate: Guidelines for the Design of Low
Cost Houses for the Climates of Kenya introduce the basic design considerations for passive solar cooling.
Conventional greenhouses consume large quantities of energy to control the climatic conditions inside. Solar
greenhouses, on the other hand, are heated primarily by the sun, and are often attached to houses to provide home
heating as well. Low-cost designs using plastic sheeting and local materials may be of relevance in the mountainous
regions of the South for supplementary home heating and food production. In the tropics greenhouses are probably
mainly of interest because the vegetables grown inside require less water. Several publications reviewed here offer a
look at current U.S. solar greenhouses.
Solar water heaters for domestic hot water are becoming more widely used in the industrialized nations as a
response to the "energy crisis". They are well suited to temperate regions. A typical system consists of a flat plate
collector and storage tank which holds water heated to about 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Centigrade).
In tropical regions solar water heating systems can provide hot water for bathing, washing clothes and other uses.
(Water heated in a normal flat plate collector does not boil, however, so this is not directly suited to water purification
schemes.) Solar water heating in these circumstances is probably best used in health centers and urban homes
where there is already a demand for hot water. Katmandu, Nepal is a good example of a city in a developing country
with a well-established solar hot water heater industry.
For developing countries, the cost of materials for solar hot water heaters may make them rather expensive. There
are more than a dozen ways to make a basic flat plate collector: there is some potential for very low cost designs,
particularly if a low pressure (gravity-fed) system is being used. Such collectors can use metal other than copper, and
even replace pipes altogether by using shallow tanks. The insulating material behind the collector plate can be local
natural fiber such as coconut husks or rice hulls.
Solar cookers have been mentioned as a possible alternative in fuel-short and deforested regions. The 1962
publication Evaluation of Solar Cookers offers a look at many designs, including most of those still being tested today.
The high cost, awkward operation, slowness, and inconvenience of outdoor cooking have prevented this technology
from finding a niche. Nevertheless, these devices remain a fixture at research centers and exhibitions, where they
regularly amaze visitors. To our knowledge, despite two decades of scattered attempts, there are no examples of the
successful introduction of solar cookers.
The use of solar energy to drive engines for irrigation water pumps has recently received a great deal of attention. In
this application, flat plate collectors provide hot water, which is used to heat liquid gas. The gas expands and drives
the engine. The gas then passes through a condenser, where it is cooled by the well water, and the cycle is then
repeated. This appears to be one of those solar energy applications that is technically but not economically feasible in
developing countries. Though the costs seem to be dropping below $25,000 per installed kw of capacity (the level of
a few years ago) they are a long way from being affordable. Locally-built water pumping windmills appear to be a far
more cost-effective alternative in areas with even relatively low average wind speeds. In fact, the most thoroughly
tested solar pump designs seem likely to remain technological dead ends, built in poor countries only through the
intervention of rich country aid. programs. Some of the completely new concepts in solar pump designs may prove
more fruitful.
Photovoltaic cells that produce electricity from sunlight will have a place in water pumping and many other high value
tasks as the price of these cells comes down significantly. For lowest cost and greatest simplicity, solar pump
systems can be designed without electrical storage equipment, and such systems may one day provide important
amounts of irrigation water to the world’s small farmers. The photovoltaic cells themselves will continue to be a
relatively high technology, imported product in most developing countries. The foreign exchange requirements for
photovoltaic cell imports are likely to be a serious barrier to widespread use. In addition, while the decentralized
energy production offered is well-matched to settlement patterns in the rural South, electricity is not an energy form
well-matched to the energy needs of these communities, where cooking, draft power, and transport are the important
energy consuming tasks along with irrigation pumping.
A whole assortment of electrical equipment would be needed to store and make use of solar electricity, and very little
of this equipment could be produced or afforded in the villages. The near-term applications are lighting and remote
communications equipment in government buildings and the homes of the wealthy; these applications are already
booming in some places because of the high cost of alternatives. For an excellent introduction to the subject of
photovoltaics and the associated equipment, see Solar Powered Electricity and Solar Photovoltaic Products: A guide
for Development Workers.
The sun’s energy is "available" everywhere, yet it is also a diffuse or low-grade energy form. This means that while
solar energy is an excellent, low-cost means of creating temperature differences of tens of degrees for drying and
heating, it is inevitably difficult and expensive to collect and concentrate solar energy to generate electricity or
perform mechanical work. For this reason, drying, heating, and cooling are the most practical solar applications for
most communities in the South.
In
summer, the sun travels at a much higher angle during the middle part of the day. Less light
directly enters south-facing windows, and they are easy to shade with overhangs such as eaves
and porches. However, the summer sun rises and sets north of east and west. Around sunrise and
sunset, the sun is at a low angle, which overhangs do not block. The end result is that the east
and west sides of the building are potentially bathed in light for several hours each day, raising
internal temperatures. If the building has its long side facing south, it is straightforward to shade
its south side during the day, and it has little exposure to the east and west. A building that faces
east or west, on the other hand, does not get much benefit from shading the south wall, and is
very exposed on the east and west. It will heat up much more than a south facing building in
summer.
However, there may be factors in the site that make orientating the building to the south
problematic. Light from the south may be obstructed by neighboring buildings, fences, trees or
nearby hills. Or the gradient of the site may make it difficult and expensive to build facing due
south. Fortunately, in practice aligning a building so that it faces within 15 degrees of true south
gives acceptably high levels of light collection, and minimal increase in eastern and western
exposure.
The following table shows how the drop off in solar gain, the amount of light available from the
sun, decreases the more the orientation of the building rotates away from true south. Less than
22° the reduction is minimal. But over this figure, the drop increases rapidly. And conversely, the
more a building faces away from true south, particularly to the west, the more cooling it is likely
to need in summer.
Solar gain
Orientation of building
received
true south 100 %
22.5° away from south, either south-
92%
south-east or south-south-west
45° away from south, either south-east
70%
or south-west
67.5° away from south, either east-
36%
south-east or west-south-west
Adapted from: Kachadorian, James, The Passive Solar House, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, White River Junction, Vermont, 2006,
second edition, p.17
Fig. 6: Energy end uses for a typical design and the zero energy home.
The BA Benchmark includes assumptions that we used to estimate the MELs and size the
4kW PV system. These assumptions are based on the best available nationwide studies of
energy use. So the home’s PV system is sized with the assumption that it will be occupied
by a “typical” American household. If the actual household and weather are typical, the
home will achieve zero energy. If the household or weather is atypical, the home may not
achieve zero energy or may be a net producer.
Fig. 2: Details of the double stud wall design
Raised heel trusses were designed to accommodate 2 feet of blown-in fiberglass in the attic
giving the top of the thermal envelope an R-60 rating. The floors are insulated to a nominal
R-30.The superinsulated shell dramatically reduces heating energy needs; “sun tempering”
was used to reduce these needs further. We designed the home with increased glazing area
on the long south side and reduced glazing area on other orientations. As a policy, Habitat
Metro Denver does not equip their homes with air conditioning, so we were sensitive to
overheating potential. Using DOE2 we evaluated different southern glazing areas and types
and overhangs. We compared the simulated heating energy and simulated cooling energy
(as if there were an air conditioning system) in the ZEH and the identical standard
construction home for each window combination. We chose the design that maximized
heating reduction without increasing cooling energy over the standard construction. Double
glazed, low emissivity (U-value = 0.30 BTU/hr-F-ft2), high solar heat gain coefficient
(SHGC=0.58) glass was chosen for the southern windows. Double glazed clear windows
would have provided more solar heating, but also would have increased the overheating
potential and would have lacked the thermal comfort and ultraviolet screening benefits.
Double glazed low emissivity (U-value = 0.22 BTU/hr-F-ft2) low SHGC (0.27) were used for
the east, west, and north windows.
Fig. 3: Double stud wall framing
The design team considered a solar “combisystem” that combines active solar thermal space
heating and water heating. However, this approach requires a relatively large equipment
investment. During the summer and during periods when the house is passively solar
heated during the fall, winter and spring there is no need for active heating. Therefore the
additional equipment investment for space heating is delivering no energy benefit for most
of the year. Few integrated solar combisystems are commercially available in the U.S. so
most of these systems are custom designed and built and can be quite complicated. We
decided that the high first cost, low utilization, complexity and custom design of this
approach was not consistent with our design criteria. For an all electric ZEH, using a ground
coupled heat pump (GCHP) for heating has attractive benefits. The GCHP can deliver three
to four units of heat for each unit of electricity used. In contrast, electric resistant heat
delivers one unit of heat for every unit of electricity consumed. In addition the GCHP can
deliver cooling in the summer. However, the ground loop for the GCHP and the heat pump
itself are quite expensive and would require an air handler and duct system or a hydronic
system to distribute the heating. The compact size and superinsulated shell of the Habitat
ZEH reduced heating needs to so low a level that the cost of the GCHP was not justified.The
use of natural gas for heating, cooking, and clothes drying within a ZEH is somewhat
controversial. There are those who believe that since a ZEH exports only electricity, it must
consume only electricity. However, in most of the U.S., the electricity consumed comes
primarily from fossil fuels. So the home is consuming fossil fuels when it is using electricity
and offsetting that consumption when it is producing excess photovoltaic electricity. This is
similar for a ZEH that consumes natural gas. The photovoltaic system is sized to produce an
excess of electricity to offset the natural gas used. The source energy use is net zero.The
economics of the use of natural gas or all-electric differ. For an all-electric home too small
and efficient to use a GCHP, the all-electric approach requires a larger PV system and is
substantially more expensive. The all-electric approach has the advantage of eliminating the
monthly fixed cost of having a natural gas hookup which is about $9.00/month in the
Denver, CO area. However, the Habitat ZEH design team decided to use natural gas in the
home, reducing the required PV array size by 1.1 kW and to take a hybrid approach to
space heating.The space heating system combines a point-source direct vent natural gas
furnace in the living/dining area of the home and small baseboard electric resistive heaters
in the three bedrooms. This approach is relatively low cost, elegantly simple and provides
zone heating because each appliance has its own independent thermostat.
True 0