Stories tagged with "passive solar series"

Passive Solar Design Overview - Part 4: Controls

Posted by Gail the Actuary on February 6, 2009 - 10:04am
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: passive solar design, passive solar series [list all tags]

This is another guest post by Will Stewart.

In Parts 1, 2, and 3 of this Passive Solar Design Overview series, we looked at the three main architectural styles of passive solar design (Direct Gain, Indirect Gain, and Isolated Gain), as well as the first three of the five design aspects, Aperture, Absorber, and Thermal Mass. This article will address the design aspect Controls at an overview level. All of these aspects are important regardless of whether a new building is being designed or renovation of a current building is being considered.


Figure 15 - Passive Solar Design Aspects

There's more… (1381 words) | Comments (37) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version

Passive Solar Design Overview: Part 3 – Thermal Storage Mass

Posted by Nate Hagens on January 26, 2009 - 9:23am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: original, passive solar, passive solar series [list all tags]

This is Part 3 in a series on Passive Solar Design by Will Stewart, a Systems Engineer in the energy industry and longtime reader of theoildrum.com. As a new administration considers how best to make future infrastructure investments, it seems like some of the lowest hanging fruit is better utilization of the daily solar flux, not only directly with photovoltaic and hot water, but also in building construction and placement. I encourage our readers to further their understanding of passive solar concepts by reading/bookmarking this series.
There's more… (2987 words) | Comments (109) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version

Passive Solar Design Overview – Part 2 in a Series

Posted by Nate Hagens on January 17, 2009 - 11:28am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: original, passive solar, passive solar series, will stewart [list all tags]

This is Part 2 in a series on passive solar by Oil Drum reader Will Stewart. Passive solar is one of many practices attempting to increase the percentage of our baseline energy use we receive from renewable flows as opposed to fossil stocks.

Solar Irradiance by Wavelength (reaching the Earth)
Figure 6 - Solar Intensity at Sea Level by Wavelength
There's more… (1304 words) | Comments (73) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version

Passive Solar Design Overview – Part 1

Posted by Nate Hagens on January 8, 2009 - 3:17pm in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: original, passive solar, passive solar series, will stewart [list all tags]

Below the fold is a TOD:Campfire post on Passive Solar, from longtime TOD reader Will Stewart. Will is a Systems Engineer in the Energy industry - he will have a follow up post in the near future. Please add your own experience and expertise with passive solar, including links and images in the comment section - the sun is as close as we get to a perpetual energy subsidy.....how we best access and take advantage of it is the subject of tonights post. For submissions to this series, please email campfire@theoildrum.com or todcampfire@gmail.com.
There's more… (1612 words) | Comments (124) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version