What You Know About Active Solar Energy?

 Active Solar Energy

There are two types of active solar systems; those which directly use the sun’s rays (as in a flat plate collector) and those which convert solar energy into another power source (as in photovoltaic cells). Both collectors are mounted on south-facing roofs at optimum pitch (308 to 408).

Embodied energy and recycling

The ‘embodied’ energy of materials within a building is complex, and relates to how such materials can be recycled after the building’s ‘first use’, as well as to the energy used in their manufacture and transport to the site. Moreover, embodied energy is small (approximately 10 per cent) when compared with that consumed during a building’s useful life.


There are two categories of recycling; one reuses the salvaged building materials and components ‘as found’ in a new building, whilst the other manufactures new components from ‘scrap’ material. The embodied energy of the latter is much greater. On a larger scale, some buildings offer an infinite capacity for re-use, whilst others, because of an inherent inflexibility in their organization and method of construction, face demolition after the expiry of their ‘first life’.

Energy conservation

Whilst buildings which are heavily insulated and air-tight will conserve energy, sensible design decisions at a strategic stage are nevertheless crucial in this pursuit. For example, north-facing fenestration should be minimal, or in extremist, avoided altogether. This simple case exposes the interactive nature of sustainable design, for high levels of insulation will not produce ‘green’ architecture should embodied energy, or working with a prevailing climate, be disregarded.

Energy conservation

So what effect has sustainability had upon architectural form? Certainly, architects have extended their range of architectural expression both at strategic and tactical levels. The response to climate is obvious in a new orthodoxy of heavily-glazed south elevations with shading devices and attendant minimally-glazed north elevations on a narrow plan, with direct visual consequences. Moreover, devices such as atria and thermal chimneys have been displayed by architects as expressive elements to describe their building’s ‘green’ credentials.

On a larger scale, Michael Hopkins employed the whole gamut of sustainable devices at Jubilee Campus, Nottingham University, UK. Atria with glazed roofs incorporating PV cells, light shelves, louvered shading devices, thermal chimneys, and grass roofs, are all overtly displayed as powerful elements within a new architectural expression, and, in the event, extend that modernist concern for tectonic display to mainstream contemporary architecture.