Simple method to know collector area of passive solar systems in first steps of architectural project building.

ESTEVES, ALFREDO; GELARDI, DANIEL; GANEM, CAROLINA

Proceedings of the VII World Renewable Energy Congress.

Elsevier Ltd

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2002; p. 1 - 6

The best opportunities for improving a building´s energy performance occur early in the design process, when basic decisions are made concerning the site, orientation,  configuration and passive solar strategies. If the designer does not realize the potential for energy saving during the initial phase the opportunity to make significant savings will be lost by relatively simple adjustments to the design. Designing the envelope of an environmentally-sensitive building is a demanding task for the architect. The interactions between buildings are by their nature very complex and while some design tools and guidelines exist to help the designer to understand the phenomenon involved and predict how the building will perform, the development of more friendly computer tools is necessary. In this paper is presented a simple method to calculate solar saving fraction and annual energy consumption, to be applied in the early process of  building design; that provides appropriate knowledge to measure the success of different passive solar solutions that would be implemented in the building.