Save energy by using solar protection systems! |
Effective heating systems, good insulation, modern energy-saving lightbulbs – private households, too, can do a lot to reduce energy consumption and the emission of greenhouse gasses.
One area that is often overlooked in this regard is is solar shading. Though it is precisely here that with comparatively little investment much can be done to reduce the damaging emission of CO2. The big advantage of shutters and solar shading lies in their flexibility. They can be put to use according to the time of day or year so that they positively influence the overall energy balance of a building.
Shading windows and glass areas in this way in the summer months results in a reduced use of air conditioning and in many cases even makes it superfluous. In the colder months exterior sunshading products can be retracted during the day to allow the energy supplied by the winter sun to bolster the building's central heating system.
At night a combination of interior and exterior sunshading especially, can assist in building up a cushion of air that will slow down the loss of heat to the exterior.The energy consumption for heating a house can be reduced by up to 10% in this way.
A current study undertaken by the European Solar Shading Organisation (ES-SO), the umbrella organisation of the European Shutter & Solar Shading Association, attributes an enormous environmental protection potential to this use of solar shading: in total 111 million tonnes of CO2 could be saved annually in Europe by the sensible use of solar shading alone. Of this 80 million tonnes would be saved by reducing the use of air conditioning and 31 million tonnes by reducing demands for heating. |
