SR231 Solar wall collectors - results of a field trial in three schools and a house (2018)

The use of a solar wall collector that utilises the naturally solar heated external cladding cavity (i.e. within-wall) air to provide winter-time conditioning to adjacent indoor spaces is a potential low-cost technology suitable for both retrofit and new build markets.

This project looks at its simplified application in three standard New Zealand school buildings as well as in a research house to examine the feasibility of relying only on off-the-shelf, rather than proprietary materials, for the solar wall.

In addition to assessing aspirated cladding systems, identical but non-aspirated claddings are examined in the schools' field trials. The findings are summarised from monitoring the three schools located in the diverse climatic regions of Auckland's North Shore, Hamilton and Invercargill, as well as the Hamilton research house.