Passive Solar Power

The principle of passive solar power is very easy in its commonest form. Lightweight energy enters through glass, that is transparent to visible wavelengths (as we understand, as a result of we see through it). This lightweight energy is reworked into heat when it is incident on the inside of the room. When this heat is re-radiated from the surfaces within the space its wavelengths are longer and also the glass, acting like a mirror to these longer wavelengths, reflects most of this heat into the room.

If we have a tendency to wish to create the foremost of this heat and keep it from dissipating too quickly, there are four main things we have a tendency to can do:
• Insulate the external walls, ceiling (or roof) and floor of the building in which we wish to contain the heat.
• Install double-glazing and use low emissivity glass to replicate even more of the warmth into the room.
• Increase thermal capacity if necessary: if your home is not made of heavy materials, like bricks or concrete, that have a high thermal capacity to store and even out the warmth, then it may be worth intro¬ducing some thermal mass within the insulated envelope (columns of water contained in glass have been used effectively).
• Cowl the windows in the dark with insulating shades or shutters to scale back heat loss (see pp. sixty six-67).

Any window will so become a solar collector-even north-facing ones will become collectors during daylight if the insulation levels are high enough within the window through which the light passes.

It’s important to understand that in Britain we have a tendency to are placed any north than we often perceive ourselves to be, as a result of of the heat of the Gulf Stream. The bulk of the country is between 51 degrees and 58 degrees, which puts us on the identical latitude as Denmark, Canada and mid-Russia. The USA, where solar energy is additional used and more analysis done, is abundant more south than in Britain. Our comparatively northerly latitude suggests that that we have a tendency to receive terribly very little energy from the sun in the middle of winter, especially in northern Britain. November, December, January and the primary [*fr1] of February are all low solar energy months. These are the months when draught-proofing and insulation are thus vital, and when we virtually definitely have to use top-up heating to stay our homes warm.

However if we tend to suppose of the months of spring (the second half of February, March and April) and autumn (September and October), this is often when we could be in a position to avoid using heating or reduce it significantly if we have a tendency to make the foremost of passive solar energy during this time. Another name that is given to the light energy that enters our houses, straight from the sun into our living rooms, is ‘direct gain’.

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