Utilizing phase change materials in double skin facade; An effective approach for using solar renewable energy

Nowadays, using the double skin facades has attracted the attention of many engineers because of its significant effects on the buildings’ energy consumption, beside of maximum absorption of solar renewable energy. The previous researches have shown that the double skin facades have an appropriate thermal performance in the cold season. However, using double skin façade may lead to increase the building’s energy demand in the warm season. Therefore, in the recent years, the idea of using double skin facades with phase change materials (PCM) has been proposed in order to decrease the summer energy consumption of buildings. In this study, a thermal performance analysis has been performed by considering a high-rise building with the phase change material double skin façade in Tabriz and Bandarabas climatic conditions. The results indicate that using the ordinary double skin façades in Tabriz climatic conditions can decrease the building’s energy consumption up to 20% in cold months of the year; but it can lead to increase the summer cooling load about 14%. However, by using double skin façades with the phase change material glazing, the building’s energy consumption in cold and warm seasons may decrease about 12.5% and 7%, respectively. Also, the double skin façades with the phase change material glazing shows a good performance in Bandarabas climatic conditions with cooling and heating load energy saving about 5.7 and 12.6%, respectively.