How can you incorporate renewable energy systems into your sustainable architecture design?

solar power is not just an energy solution but an integral part of modern architectural design, reflecting a commitment to innovation, aesthetics, and sustainability.

Solar energy encompasses far more than the realm of electricity generation through Solar PV panels, embracing a myriad of transformative possibilities and sustainable solutions. For example, one of the first things the Sustainability Engineer will do is to carry out a full “ecological energetics” assessment of the site, the building, and its operation. I’ll detail the solar technologies in Section 2, but the benefits include: Protection from glare and UV, purified air, water treatment, reduced heating, cooling and ventilation energy, and views, biophilic beauty and amenity.

Urban wind turbines, aligned with local patterns, offer sustainable energy. Critical in size and placement, they complement solar power, enhancing city resilience and reducing emissions for a greener future.

There is a far more beneficial Eco Service that wind can provide, namely natural ventilation. The financial savings obtained from implementing natural ventilation would be far greater than the value of electricity that could be obtained from wind powered electrical turbines on the building. Note natural ventilation strategies include, manual and automated window opening and closing, cross flow, attenuated louvres for sound privacy, double skin facades, roof top cowls to capture wind differential pressure to enable exhaust and supply air flows, heat pipe thermal heat recovery, wind driven evaporative cooling, and hybrid systems with mechanical boost for situations where there is insufficient wind.

In reality very few designers have practical experience of designing geothermal systems for residential or commercial buildings, myself included, and in fact there are few real examples in existence. I designed one system that was installed for a school in the UK. It used a sports field to locate shallow trenches in which plastic pipe was laid. It was a closed loop indirect design in which the water in the ground loop was used to warm water via a heat exchanger to improve the thermal efficiency of a packaged heat pump that was in turn utilized to provide heating via a low temperature radiative/convective heating system.

Thermal mass acts as a natural battery, storing and releasing energy to regulate indoor temperatures. Designers must approach thermal storage with a keen eye for passive design principles and material properties. Thermal capacity and lag – the delay between energy absorption and its impact on indoor conditions – are crucial considerations. Decoupled thermal storage systems offer unparalleled design flexibility, allowing passive principles to be achieved even in less-than-ideal building orientations. This innovative approach decouples thermal mass from the building structure, opening up a world of possibilities for architects and engineers. Sand batteries are an exciting new development in this field.