A comprehensive review of solar facades. Opaque solar facades

In antiquity, people already knew the principles of solar architecture, designing their houses to the south to take advantage of the sun in all seasons. Today, solar architecture is undergoing a true revolution because of the development, among other things, of special facades involved in the processes of heating, ventilation, thermal isolation, shading, electricity generation and lighting of homes: these are called solar facades. This paper aims to review the remarkable developments that have occurred during the first decade of this century in this field. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.