Solar energy is nonpolluting and renewable. There are different kinds of technologies that can harness solar radiation and convert it into solar energy. the building can employ either active or passive solar heating. So here this article gives the difference between active and passive solar heating to better understand this topic.
What is Active solar heating?
Using active solar heating air, water or creating electricity with photovoltaic panels. The panels should sit on your roof or on a sunny wall where they can collect heat and generate electricity to run a heat pump or power the blower fan of a gas furnace.
What is Passive Solar Heating?
Passive heating is to use materials with a high thermal mass. While the sunshine can warm the air in your home, the air itself has a low thermal mass. Some materials that can better capture heat include masonry products like ceramic tiles, stone brick, and concrete.
Difference between Active and passive solar heating:
- Passive solar heating is a system that operates without pumps, blowers, or other mechanical devices, while active heating pumps, blowers, or other mechanical devices require circulating the working fluid for the transportation of heat.
- Passive solar heating is a special building design that is necessary, while active solar heating is a special building design that is not necessary.
- Passive solar heating is less expensive than an active system to construct and operate, while active solar heating is more expensive than the passive system to construct and operate.
- Active solar heating can be employed at almost any location and type of building, while Passive solar heating is suitable where there is ample winter sunshine and an unobstructed southern exposure is possible.
- Passive solar heating is a system of solar radiation is collected by an element of the structure itself. The various elements of the building like walls, roof, windows, partitions etc are selected and so architecturally integrated that they participate in the collection, storage, and transportation, and distribution of thermal energy, while Active solar heating is the solar radiation is collected using some kind of separate collectors. Solar energy may be stored in sensible heat storage materials or in latent heat storage materials and the energy is redistributed in the building space using pumps, fans, blowers, etc