Passive solar building design

Passive solar building design uses a building’s orientation, windows, thermal mass, and shading to capture, store, and distribute solar heat without mechanical systems.

Solar orientation: The positioning of a building or its openings relative to the Sun’s path. Orientation determines which façades receive useful winter sunlight and how much summer exposure they face.
Heat capacity: The amount of heat required to raise a material’s temperature by a given amount. It helps explain why some materials buffer indoor temperatures better than others.
Trombe wall: A sun-facing thermal storage wall separated from glazing by a narrow air space. It stores solar heat behind glazing and releases it gradually into occupied spaces.
Active solar heating: A system that collects solar heat using equipment such as pumps, fans, or controls. Unlike passive design, it depends on mechanical components to collect or distribute heat.
Thermal mass: A material’s capacity to absorb, store, and release heat as its temperature changes. Floors and walls can absorb daytime solar gains and release them after sunset.
Thermal conductivity: A material property describing how readily heat flows through it. Conductivity affects heat loss through walls, roofs, and floors.
Direct-gain solar design: A passive solar strategy in which sunlight enters occupied rooms and warms interior surfaces directly. It is the simplest arrangement for collecting heat through appropriately placed glazing.
Solar air conditioning: Cooling systems powered partly or wholly by solar energy. It addresses cooling demand with equipment rather than relying only on building form and shading.
Solar heat gain coefficient: A measure of the fraction of incident solar radiation that enters through a window as heat. It quantifies how glazing affects solar heat entering the building.
Insulation: Materials or methods that reduce heat transfer between spaces at different temperatures. Insulation limits the escape of solar heat stored inside the building.

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