Earth Pipe Cooling Strategy in Buildings: A Sustainable Approach

Abstract

Abundant energy supply is one of the preconditions of economic growth, however, the economic growth in turn leads to higher energy consumption to support higher living standard. The energy demand is increasing at an alarming rate throughout the world, which may lead to scarcity of energy in near future. Most of this energy is used in buildings for heating and cooling. Therefore, it is important to adopt a system to save energy in buildings without using any habitual mechanical devices. Passive air cooling is such a system assists us to save energy in passive process. Earth pipe cooling strategy is one of them, which can cool a space with minimal energy. In this strategy, air comes through a pipe inlet and passes underground via buried pipes, transfers heat to the earth (soil), gets cooler and goes to the room through pipe outlet. This paper reviews the earth pipe cooling performance in different climates by an intensive literature survey. The performance was also compared with other common passive air cooling strategies used in buildings. The findings of the study recommend an optimum passive air cooling guidelines, and passive air cooling products to the occupants of the buildings.

Keywords: Cooling Performance; Passive Air Cooling; Energy Consumption.