Evaluation of overheating protection with sun-shading systems

Sun-shading systems have to provide thermal and visual comfort both reliably and economically. At the same time, they should prevent unwanted solar gains in summer and permit high solar gains in winter. This paper describes a method to assess the overheating protection offered by different types of sun-shading systems together with the associated control strategy. The objective of the new method is to provide a simple but reliable and realistic approach to evaluate the effectiveness of internal and external shading devices in combination with glazing, which is independent of the building type. The new method consists of the angle-dependent determination of the total solar energy transmittance, g, based on ray-tracing methods, which has been validated using calorimetric measurements. Combination with annual irradiance distributions allows for the evaluation of different control strategies. This paper shows that it is essential for the reliability of calculated cooling and heating loads, that the calculation is based on a control strategy, which reflects the priorities of the users of the building