Building energy performance evaluation of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) window with semi-transparent solar cells

• Published in: Applied energy Vol. 129; pp. 217 - 227
• Main Authors: Chae, Young Tae, Kim, Jeehwan, Park, Hongsik, Shin, Byungha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 15.09.2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Building energy simulation; Building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) system; Carbon equivalent; Climate; Energy; Energy conversion efficiency; Equipments, installations and applications; Exact sciences and technology; Natural energy; Optical properties; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaic conversion; Semi-transparent solar cell; Solar cells; Solar cells. Photoelectrochemical cells; Solar energy; Spectra; Sun; Wavelengths; Carbon equivalent; Semi-transparent solar cell; Building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) system; Building energy simulation; Performance evaluation; Energy consumption; Buildings; Photovoltaic system; Windows; Energy performance; Carbon; Photovoltaic cell; Solar cell; Simulation; Solar energy; Electric power production
• ISSN: 0306-2619; 1872-9118
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.04.106

[Display omitted] •A systemic approach to evaluate the performance of semi-transparent BIPV windows.•Characteristics of solar cell dominate the BIPV windows’ thermo-optical properties.•We evaluated annual building energy performance of a typical office building model.•The BIPV windows are very efficient to reduce environmental effects of the building.•The optimized BIPV configuration is different by climate conditions of the building. This study evaluates the effects of electrical and optical parameters of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) windows with a semi-transparent solar cell on the overall energy performance of a typical mid-sized commercial building in various climate conditions. For precise evaluation of thermo-optical performance of the BIPV windows, we have fabricated semi-transparent amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells in various conditions and evaluated optical properties of the cells in addition to the energy conversion efficiency. More importantly, we have taken optical parameters of the cells in different sun wavelength spectra on the front and back side of the cell because optical response at each wavelength affects differently on the energy conversion efficiency of the cell and thermal properties of BIPV windows. By using three different semi-transparent solar cell types, the annual whole building energy simulation was performed to evaluate the BIPV window performance in six different climate conditions. A significant change in the overall building energy consumption was observed by varying the thermo-optical characteristics of BIPV windows. Our results suggest it is required to customize the BIPV window characteristics with real optical data through sun wavelength spectra which is sensitively varying by the fabrication conditions of solar cells, in order to maximize building energy performance for different climate conditions at the building location.