Energy efficient cooling technologies for achieving sustainability in buildings in subtropical climate

Energy efficient cooling technology is the key to the building’s sustainability. To approach the concept of energy efficiency in building systems in a sub-tropical climate, buildings should adopt a number of innovative technologies. The building sector is of great consequence in Australia’s economy and greatly affects the level of resources that are consumed. As sustainability is an increasingly important issue, there is a need to address the factors affecting sustainability in the building sector. Globally buildings are responsible for a large portion of the total annual energy consumption in the world. Most of this energy is for the functioning of lighting, heating, cooling and air conditioning. Concerns about social and environmental sustainability have led to increased interest in planning for proper utilisation of energy. World’s attention on current climate change impact and sustainability has also urged for a closer look at the energy efficient technologies. As buildings are important consumer of energy and thus important contributor to the higher greenhouse gas emissions to the environment. Therefore, low energy cooling technologies for buildings must be one of the definite alternatives to contribute to the sustainability of buildings. This study is a step towards achieving this goal. In this study, the technologies of energy efficiency improvement in building cooling are reviewed to achieve better sustainability. The effectiveness of space-conditioning technologies within the building systems is also discussed