A building’s total roof is naturally a solar air collector. Moving this captured air can provide a free and clean-powered heating and cooling alternative.

The solar smartbreeze system has been designed to capture the radiant heated air under a tile or metal roof, using either the heat to warm the building on a cool day or purge the hot air to assist cooling on a hot day. In effect, the total roof becomes a solar collector.

The standard smartbreeze is located on the ridge of the roof of the building and uses a 30 watt photovoltaic cell to operate fans during the day. The energy is then stored in a battery for night cooling. The battery runs a fan system to either blow the filtered air into a home via ducting or to purge the air back into the atmosphere, depending on the room temperature required.

On a metal roof, the roof ribs act as a duct, with hot air rising to the highest point. With a sarked metal roof – that is, the use of wood panels or ‘sarking boards’ under the roof sheet to provide support – the unit uses the air between the roof sheets and sarking to ensure the hottest air is moved to be purged or filtered and redirected into the home.

On a tile or unsarked roof, the smartbreeze unit captures the air from the ceiling space and purges the hot air or redirects warm or cool air into the home after passing through an electrostatic filter. The unit has the ability to extract air from within the building whilst purging hot air from the ceiling which is an ideal application for reducing the heat build up in the top level of a two storey home.

An advantage of the technology, from a cooling perspective, is that it continually monitors ambient temperature. When there is a cool change outside during the day or the temperature outside drops at night, the system will redirect the cool air into the building throughout the night to achieve desired temperatures.

Temperatures are controlled by a wireless thermostat, which also calculates the energy saving of using green energy to assist heating and cooling compared with fossil fuel.

The thermostat can also control home heating and cooling as it has the ability to be linked to traditional heating and cooling systems. This management system enables smartbreeze green energy to provide the initial heating and cooling requirements and if not available or insufficient then it will call upon fossil fuelled systems as a secondary source. As the unit is directing clean fresh filtered air into the building, it provides a natural climate control solution for the home and school, as well as retirement villages and aged care facilities.

The smartbreeze also has industrial and commercial applications. Various larger model units can be connected to a single thermostat, thereby providing a source of heating and cooling for factories and warehouses; an application with significant energy savings on day-to-day heating and cooling.

Larger roof spans, such as on shopping centres, are also suitable for the system. While purging the heat from the roof to reduce the cooling requirement, the system can link into the return ducting, already available, and provide a natural heating option. This will significantly reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and heating costs.

Manufactured in Australia, patented and released by the company Smart Roof Australia Pty Ltd, smartbreeze has already been recognised within the industry as a winner of the Best New Product Award at Design Build 2008 and was a finalist in the recent Green Plumbers Awards.

The smartbreeze system is a green answer for all buildings, assisting with heating and cooling while providing an environmentally friendly solar energy solution.