ABSTRACT
In hot and humid cities, space conditioning and refrigeration generally consume close to half of energy use in office and residential buildings. In conventional air-conditioning provision, electricity-driven equipment is commonly applied. The projection of energy supply finds that fossil fuels may still play a very significant role in 2035 if there is no abrupt change of energy use (IEA, 2010). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently issued a special report about the role of renewable energy sources in climate change mitigation (IPCC, 2011). It indicates renewable energy, including solar energy, has a large potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. But how can renewable energy be widely used in the building sector?
