A passive solar building for ecological research in Argentina: the first two years experience

An energy-efficient building, featuring energy conservation, passive solar heating, and natural cooling strategies, was designed and built in La Pampa, a province in the temperate semi-arid region of central Argentina. Of compact design, it houses 350 m² of useful floor area in a roughly linear scheme, with the main spaces facing north and ancillary spaces (services) facing south. Solar windows running from above spandrel and up to ceiling height are provided for all the main spaces, and clerestory windows are provided for the solar gain to the south-facing spaces. An integrated sunspace is incorporated into the centre bay of the north facade, providing additional heat to inner spaces as well as functional and visual expansion. In the design stage, a simulation analysis was performed to assess the environmental and energy performance of the alternatives. The main energy features of the resulting building are a volumetric loss coefficient of 1.09 W m⁻³ °C⁻¹, and a predicted solar savings fraction of 70%. The summer cooling strategy includes the passive induction of exterior air into the building through earth-coupled ducts. Cooling by cross-ventilation is made possible during the night, but to preserve the security of the building from sudden storms, this occurs only when the building is occupied. Shading devices protect all windows in summer. Provisional monitoring, started during the 1995 winter period, showed encouraging possibilities of energy savings with adequate comfort conditions, demonstrating the technical feasibility of the scheme.     

Identifying key design parameters of the integrated energy system for a residential Zero Emission Building in Norway

This study examined an integrated solution of the building energy supply system consisting of flat plate solar thermal collectors in combination with a ground-source heat pump and an exhaust air heat pump for the heating and cooling, and production of domestic hot water. The supply energy system was proposed to a 202 m² single-family demo dwelling (SFD), which is defined by the Norwegian Zero Emission Building standard. The main design parameters were analyzed in order to find the most essential parameters, which could significantly influenced the total energy use. This study found that 85% of the total heating demand of the SFD was covered by renewable energy. The results showed that the solar energy generated by the system could cover 85–92% and 12–70% of the domestic hot water demand in summer and winter respectively. In addition, the solar energy may cover 2.5–100% of the space heating demand. The results showed that the supply air volume, supply air and zone set point temperatures, auxiliary electrical volume, volume of the DHW tank, orientation and tilt angle and the collector area could influenced mostly the total energy use.     

Performance analysis on a building-integrated solar heating and cooling panel

The solar heating and nocturnal radiant cooling techniques are combined aiming at a novel solar heating and cooling panel (termed as SHCP) to be easily assembled as construction components for building roofing or envelope and also compatible with surroundings for its versatile coating colors, which can remove the double-skin mode from conventional solar equipment. SHCP has two functions for heating and cooling collecting. In this paper, the heating and cooling performances were analyzed in detail based on a small scale experimental system and effects of air gap and coatings were investigated. The results show that in sunny day of extreme cold January in Tianjin, China, the daily average heat-collecting efficiency is 39% with the maximum of 65%, while in sunny night during hot seasons the average cooling capacity can reach 87 W/m². When two different coatings were sprayed on SHCP without air gap, its heating and cooling performances were all analyzed, the daily average heat-collecting efficiency was 39% and 27% with the maximum points of 65% and 49%, respectively, and the cooling capacity was almost the same of 30 W/m² in January.     

Novel heating and cooling concept employing rainwater cisterns and thermo-active building systems for a residential building

This paper introduces and evaluates a novel heating and cooling concept employing thermo-active building systems and environmental energy, harnessed from two 11-m³ rainwater cisterns for a 285-m² residential building in passive house standard in Germany. The building strives for a significantly reduced primary energy use with carefully coordinated measures, such as high quality building envelope, by means of vacuum insulated panels, supply and exhaust air system with heat recovery, reduced solar heat gains (solar shading), and the integration of thermal solar collectors and photovoltaic in the plant system. On this premise, a comprehensive long-term monitoring in high time-resolution was carried out for the building for two years with an accompanying commissioning of the building performance. Measurements comprise the energy use for heating, cooling, and ventilation, as well as the auxiliary equipment, the performance of the environmental heat source and sink (rainwater cistern), thermal comfort, and local climatic site conditions.     

Analysis of solar desiccant cooling system for an institutional building in subtropical Queensland,Australia

Institutional buildings contain different types of functional spaces which require different types of heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. In addition, institutional buildings should be designed to maintain an optimal indoor comfort condition with minimal energy consumption and minimal negative environmental impact. Recently there has been a significant interest in implementing desiccant cooling technologies within institutional buildings. Solar desiccant cooling systems are reliable in performance, environmentally friendly and capable of improving indoor air quality at a lower cost. In this study, a solar desiccant cooling system for an institutional building in subtropical Queensland (Australia) is assessed using TRNSYS 16 software. This system has been designed and installed at the Rockhampton campus of Central Queensland University. The system's technical performance, economic analysis, energy savings, and avoided gas emission are quantified in reference to a conventional HVAC system under the influence of Rockhampton's typical meteorological year. The technical and economic parameters that are used to assess the system's viability are: coefficient of performance (COP), solar fraction, life cycle analysis, payback period, present worth factor and the avoided gas emission. Results showed that, the installed cooling system at Central Queensland University which consists of 10 m² of solar collectors and a 0.400 m³ of hot water storage tank, achieved a 0.7 COP and 22% of solar fraction during the cooling season. These values can be boosted to 1.2 COP and 69% respectively if 20 m² of evacuated tube collector's area and 1.5 m³ of solar hot water storage volume are installed.     

Analysis of ground source heat pumps with horizontal ground heat exchangers for northern Japan

Computer simulation and analysis of a ground source heat pump system with horizontal ground heat exchangers operating in heating (max 5.5 kW) and cooling (max 3.3 kW) mode was carried out for a typical residential house, with 200 m² of living space, located in Sapporo (Japan). In spite of high electricity rate, the ground source heat pump system is more beneficial alternative for space heating than an oil furnace and an electric resistance system. Besides, the heat pump technology offers relatively low thermal degradation of the ground environment, lower cost of heating and cooling, higher operating efficiency than electric resistance heating or air-source heat pump and is environmentally clean, i.e. without greenhouse gas emission, if the electricity is generated from renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar. The use of the cooling mode can provide further benefits like a shorter investment payback and human thermal comfort in summer. As a result, application of horizontal loops for new and retrofit residential and commercial use in northern Japan is feasible particularly in farmland areas.     

Analysis of design approaches to improve the comfort level of a small glazed-envelope building during summer

An architect applies glazing to a building envelope to express an expansiveness and hi-tech quality through transparency. However, in small over-glazed buildings, the glazed envelopes often lead to an inadequate comfort level in summer, when much cooling energy is needed to improve the comfort level and occupants are forced to avoid the use of glazed envelopes. This paper presents the results of comfort survey and measurements on the indoor environment of an architecturally significant small glazed-envelope building that has received many awards for its architectural design quality, and analyzes design approaches to improve the comfort level of its occupants. During the late summer of 2002, the comfort survey was conducted, polling responses from 57 office workers, while simultaneously measuring air/surface temperatures and daylight factors. Numerical simulations were performed to investigate 13 design approaches for the improvement of the comfort level. From the temperature/daylight factor measurements, the indoor air temperature did not maintain the set-point temperature of 24.0 °C even with the operation of the air-conditioning system. When using the roller shades, the intensities of illumination and luminance on each measured desk surface were unevenly distributed from 650 Lux and 51 cd/m² to 6291 Lux and 310 cd/m². From the survey, office workers suffered thermal discomfort and uncomfortable glare from high or non-uniform brightness distributions in the working areas. From the numerical analyses using computer simulations, the double-skin envelopes with the sufficient intermediate space and shading devices were suggested to improve the comfort level.     

Solar heating and cooling by a thermochemical process. First experiments of a prototype storing 60 kW h by a solid/gas reaction

The chemical heat pumps using monovariant solid/gas reactions and thermal solar energy are potentially interesting for the air-conditioning of building (heating in winter or mid-season and refreshing in summer). They provide a function of storage without loss and potentially at high energy density. The selected reaction involves SrBr₂ as reactant and H₂O as refrigerant fluid. It is adapted to the thermodynamic constraints in temperature (heat provided by plane solar collector, heating and cooling on the level of the floor) and uses reagents having a weak impact for the environment and health. The reactive salt SrBr₂ is implemented with an expanded natural graphite in the form of a consolidated material which has acceptable thermal conductivity and permeability adapted to low pressure. The prototype reactor has a total volume of 1 m³. It is able to store, with a complete reaction, 60 kW h or 40 kW h for the heating or cooling function respectively. This prototype was tested under conditions representative of summer or mid-season; the mean heating or cooling powers, typically about 2.5–4 kW, are still insufficient because of a low heat transfer at the interface between the reactive layer and the exchanger wall. However this limitation can be clearly attenuated; that is the subject of current work in following these first experiments.     

Potential benefits of cool roofs on commercial buildings: conserving energy, saving money, and reducing emission of greenhouse gases and air pollutants

Cool roofs—roofs that stay cool in the sun by minimizing solar absorption and maximizing thermal emission—lessen the flow of heat from the roof into the building, reducing the need for space cooling energy in conditioned buildings. Cool roofs may also increase the need for heating energy in cold climates. For a commercial building, the decrease in annual cooling load is typically much greater than the increase in annual heating load. This study combines building energy simulations, local energy prices, local electricity emission factors, and local estimates of building density to characterize local, state average, and national average cooling energy savings, heating energy penalties, energy cost savings, and emission reductions per unit conditioned roof area. The annual heating and cooling energy uses of four commercial building prototypes—new office (1980+), old office (pre-1980), new retail (1980+), and old retail (pre-1980)—were simulated in 236 US cities. Substituting a weathered cool white roof (solar reflectance 0.55) for a weathered conventional gray roof (solar reflectance 0.20) yielded annually a cooling energy saving per unit conditioned roof area ranging from 3.30 kWh/m² in Alaska to 7.69 kWh/m² in Arizona (5.02 kWh/m² nationwide); a heating energy penalty ranging from 0.003 therm/m² in Hawaii to 0.14 therm/m² in Wyoming (0.065 therm/m² nationwide); and an energy cost saving ranging from 0.126/m < sup > 2 < /sup > in West Virginia to0.126/m² in West Virginia to 1.14/m² in Arizona ($0.356/m² nationwide). It also offered annually a CO₂ reduction ranging from 1.07 kg/m² in Alaska to 4.97 kg/m² in Hawaii (3.02 kg/m² nationwide); an NO_x reduction ranging from 1.70 g/m² in New York to 11.7 g/m² in Hawaii (4.81 g/m² nationwide); an SO₂ reduction ranging from 1.79 g/m² in California to 26.1 g/m² in Alabama (12.4 g/m² nationwide); and an Hg reduction ranging from 1.08 μg/m² in Alaska to 105 μg/m² in Alabama (61.2 μg/m² nationwide). Retrofitting 80% of the 2.58 billion square meters of commercial building conditioned roof area in the USA would yield an annual cooling energy saving of 10.4 TWh; an annual heating energy penalty of 133 million therms; and an annual energy cost saving of $0.356/m² nationwide). It also offered annually a CO₂ reduction ranging from 1.07 kg/m² in Alaska to 4.97 kg/m² in Hawaii (3.02 kg/m² nationwide); an NO_x reduction ranging from 1.70 g/m² in New York to 11.7 g/m² in Hawaii (4.81 g/m² nationwide); an SO₂ reduction ranging from 1.79 g/m² in California to 26.1 g/m² in Alabama (12.4 g/m² nationwide); and an Hg reduction ranging from 1.08 μg/m² in Alaska to 105 μg/m² in Alabama (61.2 μg/m² nationwide). Retrofitting 80% of the 2.58 billion square meters of commercial building conditioned roof area in the USA would yield an annual cooling energy saving of 10.4 TWh; an annual heating energy penalty of 133 million therms; and an annual energy cost saving of 735 million. It would also offer an annual CO₂ reduction of 6.23 Mt, offsetting the annual CO₂ emissions of 1.20 million typical cars or 25.4 typical peak power plants; an annual NO_x reduction of 9.93 kt, offsetting the annual NO_x emissions of 0.57 million cars or 65.7 peak power plants; an annual SO₂ reduction of 25.6 kt, offsetting the annual SO₂ emissions of 815 peak power plants; and an annual Hg reduction of 126 kg.     

Natural cooling of stand-alone houses using solar chimney and evaporative cooling cavity

In this study a low-energy-consumption technique to enhance passive cooling and natural ventilation in a solar house, using a system consisting of a Solar Chimney (SC) and an Evaporative Cooling Cavity (ECC) has been proposed. The capability of the system to meet the required thermal needs of individuals and the effects of main geometric parameters on the system performance has been studied. The dependence of the system performance on outdoor air temperature has been studied to determine the operative conditions for appropriate effectiveness, regarding thermal comfort criteria. To determine the heat and mass transfer characteristics of the system, a mathematical model based on conservation equations of mass and energy has been developed and solved by an iterative method. The findings show that the system is capable of providing good indoor air condition at daytime in a living room, even with poor solar intensity of 200 W/m². The results show that when the relative humidity is lower than 50%, the system can make good indoor air condition even at 40 °C, and a higher performance is achieved using ECC with cocurrent configuration. It is found that the proposed system may be applied successfully in hot arid climates to fulfill the indoor thermal comfort expectations.     

Cooling potential of ventilated PV façade and solar air heaters combined with a desiccant cooling machine

Thermal energy collected from a PV-solar air heating system is being used to provide cooling for the Mataro Library, near Barcelona. The system is designed to utilise surplus heat available from the ventilated PV facade and PV shed elements during the summer season to provide building cooling. A desiccant cooling machine was installed on the library roof with an additional solar air collector and connected to the existing ventilated PV façade and PV sheds. The desiccant cooling cycle is a novel open heat driven system that can be used to condition the air supplied to the building interior. Cooling power is supplied to the room space within the building by evaporative cooling of the fresh air supply, and the solar heat from the PV-solar air heating system provides the necessary regeneration air temperature for the desiccant machine. This paper describes the system and gives the main technical details. The cooling performance of the solar powered desiccant cooling system is evaluated by the detailed modelling of the complete cooling process. It is shown that air temperature level of the PV-solar air heating system of 70 °C or more can be efficiently used to regenerate the sorption wheel in the desiccant cooling machine. A solar fraction of 75% can be achieved by such an innovative system and the average COP of the cooling machine over the summer season is approximate 0.518.     

System performance and economic analysis of solar-assisted cooling/heating system

The long-term system simulation and economic analysis of solar-assisted cooling/heating system (SACH-2) was carried out in order to find an economical design. The solar heat driven ejector cooling system (ECS) is used to provide part of the cooling load to reduce the energy consumption of the air conditioner installed as the base-load cooler. A standard SACH-2 system for cooling load 3.5 kW (1 RT) and daily cooling time 10 h is used for case study. The cooling performance is assumed only in summer seasons from May to October. In winter season from November to April, only heat is supplied. Two installation locations (Taipei and Tainan) were examined.It was found from the cooling performance simulation that in order to save 50% energy of the air conditioner, the required solar collector area is 40 m² in Taipei and 31 m² in Tainan, for COP_j = 0.2. If the solar collector area is designed as 20 m², the solar ejector cooling system will supply about 17–26% cooling load in Taipei in summer season and about 21–27% cooling load in Tainan. Simulation for long-term performance including cooling in summer (May–October) and hot water supply in winter (November–April) was carried out to determine the monthly-average energy savings. The corresponding daily hot water supply (with 40 °C temperature rise of water) for 20 m² solar collector area is 616–858 L/day in Tainan and 304–533 L/day in Taipei.The economic analysis shows that the payback time of SACH-2 decreases with increasing cooling capacity. The payback time is 4.8 years in Tainan and 6.2 years in Taipei when the cooling capacity >10 RT. If the ECS is treated as an additional device used as a protective equipment to avoid overheating of solar collectors and to convert the excess solar heat in summer into cooling to reduce the energy consumption of air conditioner, the payback time is less than 3 years for cooling capacity larger than 3 RT.     

FUTURE RESEARCH ACTIONS IN PASSIVE COOLING

The PASCOOL program was the most important European project on passive cooling of buildings. The project addressed topics included solar control, the combined effect of ventilation and thermal mass, thermal comfort during summer and the potential of natural cooling techniques. PASCOOL put in evidence also the axes towards which future research on passive cooling should be oriented. This research, giving the continuously increasing trend of energy consumption for cooling purposes, is absolutely necessary in order to take advantage of the complete potential that passive cooling can offer to buildings while maintaining the living standards, health and comfort of the occupants. This paper presents these future issues that comprise (a) research on the microclimatic scale in order to address the impact of outdoor environment on the cooling load of buildings, (b) investigation of comfort requirements under transient conditions during summer, (c) research on natural ventilation in urban environments and the impact of outdoor pollution on indoor air quality, (d) development of alternative cooling systems and techniques, (e) development of integrating design concepts optimising the use of solar heating, passive cooling and natural light in buildings.     

Design and transient-based analysis of a power to hydrogen (P2H2) system for an off-grid zero energy building with hydrogen energy storage

In this study, zero energy building (ZEB) with four occupants in the capital and most populated city of Iran as one of the biggest greenhouse gas producers is simulated and designed to reduce Iran's greenhouse emissions. Due to the benefits of hydrogen energy and its usages, it is used as the primary energy storage of this building. Also, the thermal comfort of occupants is evaluated using the Fanger model, and domestic hot water consumption is supplied. Using hydrogen energy as energy storage of an off-grid zero energy building in Iran by considering occupant thermal comfort using the fanger model has been presented for the first time in this study. The contribution of electrolyzer and fuel cell in supplying domestic hot water is shown. For this simulation, Trnsys software is used. Using Trnsys software, the transient performance of mentioned ZEB is evaluated in a year. PV panels are used for supplying electricity consumption of the building. Excess produced electricity is converted to hydrogen and stored in the hydrogen tank when a lack of sunrays exists and electricity is required. An evacuated tube solar collector is used to produce hot water. The produced hot water will be stored in the hot water tank. For supplying the cooling load, hot water fired water-cooled absorption chiller is used. Also, a fan coil with hot water circulation and humidifier are used for heating and humidifying the building. Domestic hot water consumption of the occupants is supplied using stored hot water and rejected heat of fuel cell and the electrolyzer. The thermal comfort of occupants is evaluated using the Fanger model with MATLAB software. Results show that using 64 m² PV panel power consumption of the building is supplied without a power outage, and final hydrogen pressure tank will be higher than its initial and building will be zero energy. Required hot water of the building is provided with 75 m² evacuated tube solar collector. The HVAC system of the building provided thermal comfort during a year. The monthly average of occupant predicted mean vote (PMV) is between ?0.4 and 0.4. Their predicted percentage of dissatisfaction (PPD) is lower than 13%. Also, supplied domestic hot water (DHW) always has a temperature of 50 °C, which is a setpoint temperature of DHW. Finally, it can be concluded that using the building's rooftop area can be transformed to ZEB and reduce a significant amount of greenhouse emissions of Iran. Also, it can be concluded that fuel cell rejected heat, unlike electrolyzer, can significantly contribute to supplying domestic hot water requirements. Rejected heat of electrolyzer for heating domestic water can be ignored.     

A solar thermal cooling and heating system for a building: Experimental and model based performance analysis and design

A solar thermal cooling and heating system at Carnegie Mellon University was studied through its design, installation, modeling, and evaluation to deal with the question of how solar energy might most effectively be used in supplying energy for the operation of a building. This solar cooling and heating system incorporates 52 m² of linear parabolic trough solar collectors; a 16 kW double effect, water-lithium bromide (LiBr) absorption chiller, and a heat recovery heat exchanger with their circulation pumps and control valves. It generates chilled and heated water, dependent on the season, for space cooling and heating. This system is the smallest high temperature solar cooling system in the world. Till now, only this system of the kind has been successfully operated for more than one year. Performance of the system has been tested and the measured data were used to verify system performance models developed in the TRaNsient SYstem Simulation program (TRNSYS). On the basis of the installed solar system, base case performance models were programmed; and then they were modified and extended to investigate measures for improving system performance. The measures included changes in the area and orientation of the solar collectors, the inclusion of thermal storage in the system, changes in the pipe diameter and length, and various system operational control strategies. It was found that this solar thermal system could potentially supply 39% of cooling and 20% of heating energy for this building space in Pittsburgh, PA, if it included a properly sized storage tank and short, low diameter connecting pipes. Guidelines for the design and operation of an efficient and effective solar cooling and heating system for a given building space have been provided.     

Performance of a concentrated photovoltaic energy system with static linear Fresnel lenses

A new type of greenhouse with linear Fresnel lenses in the cover performing as a concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) system is presented. The CPV system retains all direct solar radiation, while diffuse solar radiation passes through and enters into the greenhouse cultivation system. The removal of all direct radiation will block up to 77% of the solar energy from entering the greenhouse in summer, reducing the required cooling capacity by about a factor 4. This drastically reduce the need for cooling in the summer and reduce the use of screens or lime coating to reflect or block radiation.All of the direct radiation is concentrated by a factor of 25 on a photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) module and converted to electrical and thermal (hot water) energy. The PV/T module is kept in position by a tracking system based on two electric motors and steel cables. The energy consumption of the tracking system, ca. 0.51 W m⁻², is less than 2% of the generated electric power yield. A peak power of 38 W m⁻² electrical output was measured at 792 W m⁻² incoming radiation and a peak power of 170 W m⁻² thermal output was measured at 630 W m⁻² incoming radiation of. Incoming direct radiation resulted in a thermal yield of 56% and an electric yield of 11%: a combined efficiency of 67%. The annual electrical energy production of the prototype system is estimated to be 29 kW h m⁻² and the thermal yield at 518 MJ m⁻². The collected thermal energy can be stored and used for winter heating. The generated electrical energy can be supplied to the grid, extra cooling with a pad and fan system and/or a desalination system. The obtained results show a promising system for the lighting and temperature control of a greenhouse system and building roofs, providing simultaneous electricity and heat. It is shown that the energy contribution is sufficient for the heating demand of well-isolated greenhouses located in north European countries.     

Numerical simulation and experimental validation of indirect expansion solar-assisted multi-functional heat pump

A novel indirect expansion solar-assisted multi-functional heat pump (IX-SAMHP) system which composes of the multi-functional heat pump system and solar thermal collecting system is proposed and studied in this paper. This system can fulfill space heating, space cooling and water heating with high energy efficiency by utilizing solar energy. For solar water heating mode and solar space heating mode, a dynamic model is presented and validated with the experimental results. The simulation results show good consistency with the experimental data, and the established model is able to predict the system performance at a reasonable accuracy (with the root mean square deviations less than 5%). On this basis, the performances of the IX-SAMHP system are investigated under different parametric conditions. For solar water heating mode, simultaneously operating the solar thermal collecting system and multi-functional heat pump system can be an energy efficiency method. With the solar irradiation rising from 0W/m² to 800W/m², the COP increases from 2.35 to 2.57. In solar space heating mode, the effect of the mass flow rate of water in evaporator is investigated. To balance the heating capacity and COP, the mass flow rate of water should be adjusted according to different temperature demands and heat load.     

An investigation of the solar powered absorption refrigeration system with advanced energy storage technology

This paper presented a new solar powered absorption refrigeration (SPAR) system with advanced energy storage technology. The advanced energy storage technology referred to the Variable Mass Energy Transformation and Storage (VMETS) technology. The VMETS technology helped to balance the inconsistency between the solar radiation and the air conditioning (AC) load. The aqueous lithium bromide (H₂O-LiBr) was used as the working fluid in the system. The energy collected from the solar radiation was first transformed into the chemical potential of the working fluid and stored in the system. Then the chemical potential was transformed into thermal energy by absorption refrigeration when AC was demanded. In the paper, the working principle and the flow of the SPAR system were explained and the dynamic models for numerical simulation were developed. The numerical simulation results can be used to investigate the behavior of the system, including the temperature and concentration of the working fluid, the mass and energy in the storage tanks, the heat loads of heat exchanger devices and so on. An example was given in the paper. In the example, the system was used in a subtropical city like Shanghai in China and its operating conditions were set as a typical summer day: the outdoor temperature varied between 29.5 °C and 38 °C, the maximum AC load was 15.1 kW and the total AC capacity was 166.1 kW h (598.0 MJ). The simulation results indicated that the coefficient of performance (COP) of the system was 0.7525 or 0.7555 when the condenser was cooled by cooling air or by cooling water respectively and the storage density (SD) was about 368.5 MJ/m³. As a result, the required solar collection area was 66 m² (cooling air) or 62 m² (cooling water) respectively. The study paves the road for system design and operation control in the future.     

Trombe wall management in summer conditions: An experimental study

The application of Trombe walls in temperate climates is problematic due to undesired heat gains and overheating phenomena in summer. A proper shading and ventilation of this system can reduce such drawbacks, but the impact of these strategies on the wall’s thermal parameters is yet not widely investigated in quantitative terms.This paper presents an experimental study on the thermal behavior of Trombe walls in summer under Mediterranean climate conditions. The aim of the study is to determine experimentally the thermal parameters of a Trombe wall in summer conditions through the changing of shading, ventilation and operational conditions.In order to do that a series of experimental campaigns were carried out on a case study. A detailed simultaneous monitoring of two Trombe walls made it possible to compare the thermal behavior by varying the screening, ventilation and internal gains conditions. Furthermore, monitoring of indoor thermal comfort conditions and energy simulation using a model in dynamic state were carried out. The results showed that shading, ventilation and occupancy conditions affect significantly the thermal parameters of Trombe wall in summer: screening with roller shutters determines a decrease in internal surface temperature of the wall of 1.4 °C and a decrease in daily heat gains of about 0.5 MJ/m²; the combined use of overhangs, roller shutters and cross ventilation for the Trombe wall can assure a satisfactory thermal comfort level in summer and a reduction of the cooling energy needs respectively of ?72.9% and ?63.0% for a dwelling with low or highly insulated building envelope in comparison with the case of an unvented Trombe wall without solar protections.