Climate-dependent optimization of radiative cooling structures for year-round cold energy harvesting

Abstract

The potential of radiative cooling (RC) technology to passively and sustainably harvest cold energy has received a lot of interest. Since RC surface is installed outdoors for the long term and operates under time-varying environmental conditions, photonic structures constructing the RC surface need to be carefully designed based on proper theoretical modeling. However, a theoretical model for accumulated cooling performance that reflects environmental factors was scarcely developed for photonic structure design. This paper presents a more practical approach for estimating RC performance as an accumulated cold energy production (ACEP). ACEP stands for the time integration of cooling power, which is modeled to comprehensively account for a wide range of time-dependent environmental factors, including mostly neglected cloud coverage as well. The realistic performance of an RC surface at any location on Earth can be estimated without conducting any experiments. Utilizing the benefits of ACEP, photonic structures are separately optimized for 15 different locations with different climates. As a result, the universal optimum for all climates achieves 2 to 4 percent greater ACEP than the conventionally driven optimum. Based on the optimized results, we have developed a strategy for selecting radiative cooling structures based on regional climate conditions utilizing ACEP as a guiding metric. Furthermore, the impact of each environmental factor on RC performance is investigated by analyzing the ACEP components.