white rooftop

white rooftop, white- or light-coloured rooftop that minimizes the amount of heat from solar radiation that is absorbed through exposed roof surfaces of buildings. White rooftops are used to reduce cooling costs and to save energy.

Solar radiation reaches Earth’s surface partly as visible light, and it is absorbed as heat energy by the surfaces that it strikes. Buildings conduct and radiate this heat into their internal spaces through their walls and roofs. The colour of the surface influences the amount of visible light reflected by it and hence the amount of heat absorbed. For surfaces receiving visible light, the capacity to store absorbed heat depends upon their mass or density. Therefore, black or dark roofs (e.g., asphalt-covered roofs or slate roofs) readily absorb large amounts of solar radiation—visible, infrared, and ultraviolet—as heat energy and store it for long periods because of their high density or mass. Further, heat flows from the hot surfaces of roofs to their cooler internal surfaces by conduction. The heated internal surfaces then radiate heat to the indoor air, increasing indoor temperatures and internal cooling loads. White rooftops, in contrast, scatter a percentage of visible light back into the atmosphere without converting it into heat energy. As a result, white rooftops help to reduce the heat loads inside buildings and thus reduce the energy demand for air-conditioning.

White rooftops can also be high-albedo roofs. Albedo is the ratio of the amount of solar radiation reflected from a surface to the total amount reaching that surface. Since infrared radiation (outside the visible spectrum) conveys a large amount of heat energy to a material, a high-albedo material must be capable of reflecting the visible spectrum and reradiating the heat absorbed from the infrared spectrum of solar radiation effectively. The colour of a material indicates only its reflectivity in the visible spectrum, and colour and composition of a material are therefore both important factors that determine how much solar radiation is absorbed and radiated by that material.

A measure of evaluating reflectance is the solar reflectance index (SRI), which incorporates solar reflectance and emissivity—the ability of a surface to emit heat by radiation—in a single value. A standard black material (low reflectance equals 0.05, high emittance equals 0.90) has an SRI of “0,” and a standard white material (high reflectance equals 0.80, high emittance equals 0.90) has an SRI of “100.” External building surfaces made from materials having a higher SRI value are therefore less likely to cause overheating of internal spaces by heat absorbed from incident solar radiation on the building.

A roof can be designed to be an inherently cool roof for new buildings and can be built by using high-SRI-value materials such as white vinyl. Roofs on existing buildings can be modified to receive specifically designed high-SRI-value white roof coatings to make the surface of the roof highly reflective. Transparent polymeric materials and white pigments are used in the coatings to provide their opaque and reflective nature. These coatings typically reflect 70 to 80 percent of the Sun’s energy.