Stratum ventilation (SV), a new indoor air distribution strategy, has been promoted for applications-in different building premises in recent years. Compared to the conventional mixing ventilation (MV), the prominent advantage of SV is that indoor thermal comfort can be satisfied with a relatively high supply air temperature, hence less energy consumption in refrigeration. In solar air-conditioning, the energy performance can also be facilitated by high-temperature cooling. As such, the potential of SV to be involved in solar air-conditioning was evaluated. In this study, the solar air-conditioning systems included solar absorption cooling system (SAbCS), solar adsorption cooling system (SAdCS), solar desiccant cooling system (SDCS), hybrid solar absorption-desiccant cooling system (HSAbDCS) and hybrid solar adsorption-desiccant cooling system (HSAdDCS). Their performances using SV and MV were determined through year-round dynamic simulation. Compared to the counterpart using MV, SAbCS, SAdCS, SDCS, HSAbDCS and HSAdDCS associated with SV could have 35%, 54%, 59%, 29% and 44% saving in the annual primary energy consumption for building in subtropical climate respectively. Benchmarked with the conventional air-conditioning system, they could have primary energy saving up to 30%. Consequently, solar air-conditioning and SV can have synergetic merit in building application in hot and humid city. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.