Application of Solar Energy in Climate-Neutral Buildings and Communities

Dear Colleagues,

Many countries have announced dates by which they want to be carbon neutral, with many of them setting the year 2050 as a target. The building sector accounts for nearly 40% of the global carbon emissions. Building operations are responsible for 28% of those total emissions. Climate-neutral buildings and communities is the only option for the building sector in the near future.

Solar thermal and solar electric (photovoltaic) energy can be used to reduce electricity, heating and cooling demand for the operation of the buildings. Solar energy technologies can provide a large share of low-temperature heating and cooling demand for buildings in 2050 and contribute a significant share to heat supply for the agricultural and industrial sectors.

In this Special Issue, manuscripts regarding solar radiation, solar heating, solar cooling, PV, PVT, passive solar buildings and so on are very welcome. The goal of this Special Issue is to exchange the latest research and developments on solar energy.

Dr. Zhiyong Tian
Dr. Jianhua Fan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.