SOLAR ENERGY – POWER FOR A NEW AGE An Analysis of the Integration of Photovoltaic and Thermal Solar Systems in Buildings

“[…] the crisis of ecological scarcity can be viewed as primarily a moral crisis in which the ugliness and destruction outside us in our environment simply mirrors the spiritual wasteland within; the sickness of the earth reflects the sickness in the soul of modern industrial man, whose life is given over to gain, to the disease of endless getting and spending that can never satisfy his deeper aspirations and must eventually end in cultural, spiritual and physical death." W. Ophuls in Architectural Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity 1 1 Stephen Rainbow, Critical Issues in New Zealand Society. Auckland, New Zealand: Oxford University Press, 1993, p.21. ABSTRACT i The aim of this research report is to examine and to indicate the need of a rethinking in architectural design and building construction in terms of the basic principles of solar radiation and to introduce solar technologies as design elements. It explores passive solar design issues as future-proof solutions to provide thermal efficiency in buildings and prove