Passive Solar Technologies

Solar Ponds
✓ A pool of saltwater
which acts as a large-
scale solar thermal
energy collector

✓ It includes an integral
heat storage for
supplying thermal
energy
Heat Extraction
3 layer Salt gradient Solar Pond
 Solar Pond with ORC

The water in the

lowest layer heats up
to ≈90°C

The fluid inside the

pipes boils

The vapour moves

the turbine

The turbine produces

electricity
 Features
• Solar energy collection & storage device
• Heat storage over seasons
• Needs large area
• Stability (concentration) problems
• Low efficiency (<10%)
• Leakage & environmental impact
• India: Pondicherry, IISc, Bhavnagar, Bhuj, IIT
Madras.
• El Paso- Texas; Australia; etc.
 Bhuj Solar Pond

• 6000 m2 area
• Supplied heat to Kutch dairy
• one injection diffuser
• Max. 99.8°C
• Brine extracted
• Closed in 2000 (earthquake)
 Solar pond,
Australia
3000 m2
2.3 m deep

• Solar pond at Pyramid Hill (in Northern Victoria, Australia) shows the mesh of pipes
running down the wall of the pond.
• These run across the bottom of the pond and up the other side. Fresh water (or
radiator coolant) is circulated through them, and is heated by the saline pond water.
• This hot fluid can then be used to boil refrigerant in a heat engine to make electricity,
or (in the case of Pyramid Hill) used to heat air to flash dry food products.
• The plastic rings visible on the surface of the water are used to reduce water
movement caused by wind.
 El Paso, Texas
• 1986
• 3350 m2 area, 3 m deep
• First in US
• 70 kW of electric power
 Ein Boquek
150-kW
Solar Pond
power plant
In Israel, near
Jerusalem

• 75,347 square feet

• 3 m deep
Bet Ha’arava 5-MW SP Power Plant
• Passive methods to achieve thermal comfort were actively used
until a few decades ago.

• Passive solar technologies are used for a variety of thermal

applications such as air heating, cooling, dehumidification, water
heating, lighting, etc.

• The emphasis is on the absence of moving parts or equipment

which require external mechanical/ electrical energy.

• Movement of air (generally) and of water is created due to

buoyancy effect caused by either temperature or pressure
differences.

• Current trend is to adopt passive solar technologies for comfort air

conditioning of built environment, namely, heating in winter and
cooling in summer.
 STEPWELLS
Stepwells are among the oldest methods used for natural / passive
air-cooling.

Examples of passive structures

Chand Baori : one of the ancient and most attractive landmarks in
Rajasthan. It was built by King Chanda of the Nikumbha Dynasty
between 800 and 900 AD and was dedicated to Hashat Mata,
Goddess of Joy and Happiness.

The state of Rajasthan is extremely arid, and the design and final
structure of Chand Baori was intended to conserve as much water as
possible. At the bottom of the well, the air remains 5-6 degrees
cooler than at the surface, and Chand Baori was used as a
community gathering place for locals during periods of intense heat.
Chand Baori Stepwell
 RANI KI VAV
PATAN, GUJARAT

Largest, costliest and

most impressive
stepwells ever built.

In 2015 it became a
UNESCO World
Heritage Site
RANI KI VAV PATAN, GUJARAT
 MAHILA BAGH JALRA UJALA BAOLI, MANDU,
JODHPUR, RAJASTHAN MADHYA PRADESH
Stepped tank in Hampi
 Ancient passively cooled buildings
Mesa Verde's Cliff Palace, Colorado, US

Open water tanks cool ambient air through

evaporative cooling before the air enters into
the building
 Amir Chakhmaq Mosque Windcatcher, Middle East
• Wind chimneys architectural towers that “catch”
the wind to create natural air flow inside buildings
‘Wind-catcher’ towers helps to
➢Wind enters
remove hot the chimney
air from the rooms directly through a tall, capped
below through underground
towerthat
tunnels withare an opening
artificially to the prevailing wind, creating a
cooled
with water sprays
downward flow of air.
➢Dense hot air escapes out of the tunnel, while cool air
from below fills the void, creating a natural indoor
breeziness
➢Hot air is pulled in through a qanat tunnel, which is then
cooled in an underground space (sometimes with the
use of water), which forces air in an upward motion
through the tower
Perforated Double Skinned Exterior provides shade to inner wall

• Rajasthani architecture is another highly effective

passive cooling technique

• Doing so allows natural daylight to diffuse through to

provide illumination but shades the indoor spaces
to avoid direct heating

• By keeping four feet between the outer and inner

walls of the building, natural air circulation is also
created
 Modern Solutions
Pearl Academy of Fashion, Jaipur

Open water ponds cool ambient air Perforated Double skinned exterior
through evaporative cooling before provides shade to inner wall from
the air enters into the building direct solar heating
 Passive Solar Heating
• Involves using a building's windows, walls, and floors to
collect, store, and distribute solar energy in the form of
heat in the winter, and reject solar heat in the summer
• Aim: to capture sun's heat within the building's elements
and release that heat during periods when the sun is not
shining
• Primary requirements:
➢ South facing window/wall (in the northern hemisphere)
➢ Thermal mass to absorb, store, and distribute heat
• Can be adopted easily for new buildings
• Difficult to adapt in existing buildings
 Rules of thumb (generally for northern hemisphere)
• The building should be elongated on an east-west axis to collect
maximum solar radiation
• The building's south face should receive sunlight between the hours
of 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. (solar time) during the winter season
• Use shading to prevent summer sun entering the interior
• Interior spaces requiring the most light and heating should be along
the south face of the building. Less used spaces should be located on
the north
Shading
Direct Gain: Direct gain is the process by
which sunlight directly enters a building
through the windows and is absorbed and
temporarily stored in massive floors or
walls
Indirect Gain: Indirect gain is the process by
which the sun warms a heat storage
element—such as a Trombe wall—and the
heat is later distributed to the interior
space by convection, conduction, and
radiation
A Trombe wall is a passive design where a wall is built on the
winter sun side of a building with a glass external layer and a high
heat capacity internal layer separated by a layer of air.

Isolated Gain: Isolated gain involves the

collection of heat in one area—such as a
sunspace on the south side of a house
 Direct Gain

• Thermal mass in the interior absorbs sunlight and radiates the heat at night
• Tile/concrete floors, tinted plaster walls (high-heat capacity materials)
• These materials keep the space from getting too hot during the day, and they
continue radiating heat into the living space in the evening
• No fans or pumps to move heated air or water around
• The key is to provide the right amount of south-facing glass area and to couple
that glass with adequate thermal mass. If too much glazing is installed, the space
will overheat on sunny days
• Windows should be large enough to provide adequate day lighting - at least 15% of
a room’s floor area
 Indirect Gain
• Thermal storage wall systems (Trombe Walls)
• Roof pond systems
 Trombe Walls

• A trombe wall can take several hours to heat up and also several
hours to discharge its heat. So it can be used as a form of night
time heating
Thermal storage wall systems
• Thermal Mass Wall or Trombe Wall - Day and
Night Operation
 Trombe Wall variants
• Exhaust vent near the top that is opened to vent to the outside
during the summer. Such venting makes the Trombe wall act as
a solar chimney pumping fresh air through the house during
the day, even if there is no breeze
• Windows in the trombe wall. This lowers the efficiency but may
be done for natural lighting or aesthetic reasons
• Electric blowers controlled by thermostats, to improve air and
heat flow
• Insulating covering used at night on the glazing surface
• Tubes or water tanks as part of a solar hot water system
• Fish tanks as thermal mass
• Using a selective surface to increase the absorption of solar
radiation by the thermal mass
 A trombe wall with black
CaCl2 panels which change
phase at 28°C facing north
• Granite mass stores heat during day and releases
during nights to warm interiors
 Fiberglass water
storage tube tanks
coloured with a dye
to store heat
 Isolated Gain
Isolated gain system has its integral parts separate
from the main living area of a house

SUN ROOM
Radiant floor Heating
Use of pressure differences between outside and inside a building

Wind pressure distribution around a building

 Wind effect and stack effect

When the wind collides with the side of a building,

different amounts of pressure are exerted upon
different sides of the building. The side directly facing
the wind experiences the highest force of air and as a
result a higher air pressure.

Stack effect or chimney effect is the movement of

air into and out of buildings, chimneys, flue-
gas stacks, or other containers, resulting from air
buoyancy. Buoyancy occurs due to a difference in
indoor-to-outdoor air density resulting from
temperature and moisture differences
Wing
Walls
Louvres & Canopy

Louvres:
each of a set of angled slats fixed or
hung at regular intervals in a door,
shutter, or screen to allow air or light to
pass through.
Cooling effect driven by
solar heating

• indirect gain mass

wall can be used to
significantly increase
ventilation rates in
adjoining spaces

• Wind turbines can be

used to increase the
ventilation rate of
rooms
• Wind turbines on roof to exhaust hot inner air
 Stack
ventilation
or
Convective
cooling
Stack ventilation, or convective air movement, relies on the increased
buoyancy of warm air which rises to escape the building through high
level outlets, drawing in lower level cool night air or cooler daytime air
from shaded external areas or evaporative cooling ponds and fountains.
Thermal
Chimney
 Thermal Cooling
• Thermal mass indirect gain wall absorber with
back insulation & front glass cover
 Passive downdraft evaporative cooling
• Downdraft tower with wetted cellulose pads at the top of the tower
• Water is distributed on the top of the pads, collected at the bottom
into a sump and re-circulated by a pump

Reverse Chimneys -
while the column of warm
air rises in a chimney, in
this case the column of
cool air falls
About 14degC drop
observed with six to nine
air changes per hour
Evaporative
cooling

Modern version of an Iranian Badgir cooling

system: pre-cool incoming air drawn by a solar
chimney.

Negative pressure from the leeward wind is

used to suck air through an underground air
chamber where earth heat-exchange and
evaporation pre-cool incoming air
 Roof pond systems
• Water is usually stored in large plastic or fiberglass
containers covered by glazing
• Space below is warmed by radiant heat from the warm
water above
• During night, movable insulation covers water surface to
prevent its cooling and heat is continued to be provided
into the room below
• 0.10 to 0.25 m depth water pool on a flat roof
• Require somewhat elaborate drainage systems, movable
insulation to cover and uncover the water at appropriate
times, and a structural system to support load of water
 Roof ponds
• Radiative and evaporative cooling
method
• Can be used for both heating and
cooling, but is most effective in hot
climates that have a low humidity,
cooler–and clearer–nights, and a
strong demand for cooling
measures
Roof pond system
• 10 to 20 cms of water stored on a flat roof in containers
made of fibreglass or plastic
• The water is covered by a removable insulating panels,
which blocks or removes the pond, depending on the
time of day
• During the day, panels stay closed, to keep out solar
heat, and the pond absorbs the heat of the house
underneath it, conducted through the house’s ceiling, as
well as through the metal base that is used to support
the pond.
• At night, the panels can be removed to expose the water
to the cool night sky, causing the water to lose the heat
any heat it collected from the house throughout the day,
through radiation
 Roof spray
combined radiative and evaporative cooling can be
integrated together to increase the rate of cooling
Reflective coatings / Heat reflective paint
• Life of the coatings will be around 6 - 7 years
• The Temperature difference of 8 to 20°C can be
noted between the coated and the uncoated roofs
• Sun Room with UV Reflective Cool White Roof
Passive Daylighting
• uses an innovative
prismatic dome,
reflective light shaft
and diffusing lens to
light a building's
interior space
Light Pipe/ Light Tube

Subterranean train station at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin

 Solar Photovoltaic system
• Photovoltaic (PV) technologies generate power using
devices that absorb energy from sunlight and convert it
into electrical energy through semiconducting materials.

• They are more commonly known as solar panels.

• The fundamental block of a PV system is the solar cell.

• A solar cell (also known as a photovoltaic cell or PV cell) is

defined as an electrical device that converts light energy
into electrical energy through the photovoltaic effect.

• A solar cell is basically a p-n junction diode.

• Solar cell is the most expensive component in a
solar PV system (about 60 per cent of the total
system cost) though its cost is falling slowly.

• Typically, it produces a potential difference of

about 0.5 V and a current density of about 200 A
per sq. m. of cell area in full solar radiation of 1 kW
per sq. m. (approximate efficiency 10-20%)

• It has a life span in excess of about 20 years.

• As a PV system has no moving parts it gives almost

maintenance free service for long periods and can
be used unattended at inaccessible locations.
Major advantages of solar PV systems over conventional power
systems are:

• It converts solar energy directly into electrical energy without

going through thermal-mechanical link. It has no moving parts.

• Solar PV systems are reliable, modular, durable and generally

maintenance free.

• These systems are quiet, compatible with almost all

environments, respond instantaneously to solar radiation and
have an expected life span of 20 years or more.

• It can be located at the place of use and hence none or

minimum distribution network is required.
Solar PV systems also has some disadvantages:

• At present the costs of solar cells are high, making

them economically uncompetitive with other
conventional power sources.

• The efficiency of solar cells is low. As solar radiation

density is also low, large area of solar cell modules are
required to generate sufficient useful power.

• As solar energy is intermittent, some kind of electrical

energy storage is required, to ensure the availability of
power in absence of sun. This makes the whole system
more expensive.
 Semiconductors
• Ordinary semiconductors are made of
materials that do not conduct (or carry) an
electric current very well but are not highly
resistant to doing so either

• Silicon (Si), Germanium (Ge), Arsenic (As), etc.

fall halfway between conductors and
insulators and so are called semiconductors.
Band theory of solids is a theoretical model explaining the states
of electrons, in solid materials, that can have values of energy
only within certain specific ranges.
hole and electron movement in a semiconductor
 Doped semiconductors

p-type semiconductor; acceptor impurity n-type semiconductor; donor impurity

Holes are majority charge carriers Electrons are majority charge carriers
 p-n Junction Diode
• When a junction between a P-and
Indicates potential
N-type materials is formed, the difference-not an
carriers (free electrons and holes) actual battery
diffuse from higher concentration
side to lower concentration side,
and neutralize each other.

• In a PN junction there is a gradual

change from one type of material
to another.

• The un-neutralized ions in the

neighborhood of the junction
result in a charge density. Since
this region is depleted of mobile
charges it is called depletion
region.
 p-n Junction Diode
• Mobile charge carriers exist only Indicates potential
outside the depletion region. difference-not an
actual battery

• An electric field exists now in the

depletion region, which points from
positive to negative charge, i.e., N
side to P side.

• This voltage variation constitutes a

potential energy barrier against
further diffusion of free electrons
and holes to the other side of the
junction. This is known as contact
potential, barrier voltage VB.
 Photoconduction
Once an electron-hole pair is generated within the depletion region, both carriers
will be acted upon by the built in electric field.

Since the electric field is directed from N to P side, it will cause the holes to be swept
quickly towards the P side and the electrons to be swept quickly towards the N side.

Due to the electric field, chances of recombination of these electron-hole pairs are
quite less.

Once out of depletion region, these carriers become a part of the majority carriers in
the respective regions and diffuse away from the depletion region as their
concentration near junction has increased.
I-V characteristic of an ordinary silicon PN junction is shown in
with the junction not illuminated is shown below
I-V characteristic of an ordinary silicon PN junction is shown in
with the junction not illuminated is shown below
 Solar Cell I-V Characteristics
When the PN junction is illuminated, the characteristics gets
modified in shape and shifts downwards as photon-generated
component (IL) is added with reverse leakage current (Io)
 Solar Cell I-V Characteristics
• IL is known as light generated current and its magnitude will depend on
solar insolation.

• When the junction is short-circuited at its terminals, V becomes zero and a

finite current Isc = –IL flows through the external path emerging from P
side.

• When the junction is left open at its terminals and no load is connected
across the terminals, no current can flow, therefore, I = 0, the voltage
available across the terminals, Voc is known as open circuit voltage.
• Typically for Isc = 2A, Io = 1 nA and at room temperature, Voc is found to
be 0.54 V.

• Thus an illuminated PN junction can be considered as an energy source, (a

Photovoltaic cell) with open circuit voltage Voc and short circuit current ISC.

• However, for an energy source, by convention, the current coming out of

positive terminal is considered to be positive. So the I-V equation and
curve are modified accordingly.
 In order to obtain as much energy as possible from the rather costly PV cell, it
is desirable to operate the cell to produce maximum power.

The voltage and current corresponding to this maximum power

are voltage, Vm and current, Im.

Symbol of a photovoltaic PN diode

I-V characteristics of a photovoltaic PN diode

• Closeness of the characteristics to the rectangular shape is a
measure of quality of the cell.
• Ideal cell would have a perfect rectangular characteristic.
• Fill factor (FF) which indicates the quality of cell, is defined as
the ratio of the peak power to the product of open circuit
voltage and short circuit current.
• Typically its value for a commercial silicon cell is in the range
of 0.5 to 0.83.

ⴄ - Max. Conversion Efficiency of a solar cell

Pi - Incident solar power on solar cell.

Due to their higher efficiency, N-type solar
panels generate more energy than P-type
ones in terms of energy requirements.

This is due to better electron mobility in N-

type portion of the solar cell.

N-type solar panel, means that the N-side

of the solar cell is facing the incident solar
radiation.
 Various type of PV cell
Conversion Efficiency
of Module

Single crystal 10 - 17%

Crystalline
Silicon Poly crystalline 10 - 13%
Semiconductor
Non-crystalline Amorphous 7 - 10%
Solar Compound
Cell Semiconductor
Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) 18 - 30%

Dye-sensitized Type 7 - 8%
Organic
Semiconductor Organic Thin Layer Type 2 - 3%

Electric Energy Output

Conversion Efficiency = x 100%
Energy of Insolation on cell
33
 Various type of PV cell
Single crystal Poly crystalline

34
 Various type of PV cell
Surface of PV cell • Aluminum Electrode
(Silver colored wire)
Example of Poly Crystalline PV • To avoid shading,
electrode is very fine.

Anti reflection film

(Blue colored film)

Front Surface
(N-Type side)

• Back surface is P-
type.
• All back surface is
aluminum electrode
with full reflection.
35
 Various type of PV cell
Single crystal Poly crystalline
120W
128W (25.7V ,
(26.5V ,
4.7A)
4.8A)

1200mm 1200mm
(3.93ft) （3.93ft）

800mm （2.62ft） Same size 800mm (2.62ft)

Efficiency is higher Efficiency is lower

36
 Various type of PV cell
Volt Ampere Watt Size
Cell 0.5V 5-6A 2-3W about 10cm
Module 20-30V 5-6A 100-200W about 1m
• Array
Array 200-300V 50A-200A 10-50kW about 30m
• 10 - 50 kW

• Module,Panel
• 100 - 200 W

• Cell
• 2–3W

37 6x9=54 (cells) 100-300 (modules)

 Silicon: from sand to wafer
• 2nd (after oxygen) most abundant in earth’s crusts: 26%
• 7th most abundant element in universe

Si: nonmetallic element, indirect semiconductor

SiO2: glass (amorphous), quartz (crystalline)
SiC: very hard (polishing)
Si: crystalline (semiconductor industry)
• cheap, abundant
• oxide (SiO2) strong and stable
dielectric; grown easily by
thermal oxidation
• larger band gap (1.1 eV): higher
operation T
• larger breakdown voltage

Doping elements
• n-type: P (phophorus), As
(arsenic), Sb (antimony)
• p-type: B (boron)
Si purification: natural Si oxide –
Metallurgical Grade Silicon (MGS)
Electronic Grade Silicon (EGS)
 Czochralski Process (for single crystal silicon)
It starts with insertion of a small seed crystal into a melt in a crucible, followed by pulling the
seed upwards to obtain a single crystal
Ingot processing
Forms of silicon

* Wikipedia
Silicon wafer