Review of Passive Cooling Methods for Buildings

Abstract An energy crisis has become a challenging issue all over the world. More than 40% of energy consumption (or more than that) is due to buildings. People were and are always looking to improve indoor conditions. Cold countries are worried about keeping the space warm whereas hot countries are worried about keeping the space cooler. There has been an exceptional increment in the utilization of air conditioning system, air coolers and fans for cooling the buildings all around the globe. The cooling load requirements of buildings have witnessed a severe energy crisis in developing countries, particularly during summer for the last two decades. Increasing consumption of energy is also one of the reasons and has led to environmental pollution resulting in global warming and ozone layer depletion. To overcome the above-said problem, we have to go with different types of cooling systems. Passive cooling and Active cooling are the two main types of cooling systems. In Active cooling technique mechanical energy in one or other form is used to cool the interior of the building (ex: Air-Conditioning (A/C), Ceiling fans etc.) which requires power source to provide the desired effect, whereas, Passive cooling technique is natural method of cooling buildings is least expensive, and it mainly depends on interaction of building and its surrounding. This paper aims to present a review of different types of Passive cooling technologies to reduce the cooling load on buildings.