Assessing the applicability of passive cooling and heating techniques through climate factors: An overview

A review on climate parameters affecting applicability of passive and low energy heating and cooling techniques is presented. The study has been developed from existing research work results, and aims to serve as a first-stage assessment tool of the viability of these solutions at a particular location, depending on outdoor conditions to be faced. This contribution starts with a justification of comprehensive climate analysis as the first step to evaluate whether a specific passive or low energy solution would be efficient, or on the contrary, it would incur in higher energy consumption. Comfort requirements indoors as well as building typology and use are then briefly tackled as they would determine actual applicability. It continues gathering the weather variables affecting passive solar, natural ventilation, free cooling and evaporative cooling technologies. Key climatic information is then studied for 4 cities selected for their different summer climate conditions. Finally it ends with an overview of existing tools for representing climate information in bioclimatic design. Thus, the main target of this paper is to serve as a guide for an adequate preselection of the optimal passive energy solutions in buildings at a specific site, from existing research on climate analysis.