Optimization of passive solar design strategies: A review

Passive solar design strategies comprise important ways of reducing the heating, cooling and lighting energy consumption of buildings. Although it is relatively simple to reduce the energy use up to some extent by applying individual strategies, very high levels of energy performance require application of the optimal combination of several strategies, verified through building energy simulations. Here we give an exhaustive review of the previous studies of simulation-based optimization of passive solar design strategies, with particular focus on recent research results.