Mechanism and influence of different colors of opaque outdoor surfaces on cooling demand of malls

Abstract

The present study investigated a specific mall in Chengdu with diverse opaque outdoor surface colors (black, dark grey, dark green, navy blue and yellow). It was revealed that different colors had a variation effect and energy-saving mechanism on the cooling energy saving ratio in hourly, daily, monthly and annual dimensions. These results revealed that for the whole year, the annual cooling load exhibited a differential change. For the whole day, as affected by meteorological factors, especially wind speed, and when the solar radiation is the same, the daily cooling energy saving amounts presented two branches. The global horizontal radiation has a significant positive influence on the daily cooling energy saving amount, but the daily cooling energy saving ratio was not significant. At the hourly level, due to the leading role of wind speed and the diffuse radiation-to-global solar radiation ratio, the hourly cooling energy-saving amount and hourly cooling energy-saving rate presented different branches. When the hourly horizontal solar radiation was the same, the lower the wind speed, the greater the cooling energy savings. Furthermore, the higher the diffuse radiation-to-global solar radiation ratio, the greater the cooling energy savings.