Seasonally Shaded Trombe Wall for Improved Annual Thermal Comfort and Energy Performance in a Hot Summer - Cold Winter Climate

Meixin Wu; Francisco Mateo-Elgueda; Yuehong Su

doi:10.65582/rrs.2026.010

Authors

Meixin Wu Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom
Francisco Mateo-Elgueda Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9093-6846
Yuehong Su Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6616-7626

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.65582/rrs.2026.010

Keywords:

Trombe wall, Thermal comfort, Seasonal shading, Building energy demand, Hot Summer Cold Winter

Abstract

Addressing the critical challenge of summer overheating in passive solar systems, this study evaluates the year-round thermal and energy performance of a seasonally shaded and fan-assisted Trombe wall in Beijing’s Hot-Summer - Cold-Winter (HSCW) climate. Using a simulation-based approach, four facade configurations were compared against a standard south-facing window baseline. Results demonstrate that while an unshaded Trombe wall (TW) reduces annual heating demand by 27%, it imposes a 25% cooling penalty. The permanent deployment of external blinds (TW+Blinds) from May to September effectively mitigates this impact, reducing the cooling load by 13% compared to the unshaded configuration and limiting the final summer penalty to only 8.7% above the baseline. The hybrid configuration, incorporating both seasonal shading and an auxiliary cavity fan (TW+Blinds+Fan), achieves the highest overall performance, delivering a 30.3% reduction in annual heating demand and a 14% net saving in total annual energy use. Furthermore, annual thermal habitability improves by 20.7% based on the frequency of occupied hours maintained within the 20 °C to 26 °C safety range. The analysis identifies seasonal shading as the primary driver for annual balance, while the performance decrease observed in April reveals that fixed-schedule fan assistance introduces operational trade-offs during transitional months.

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