Experimental Study on Improvement of Power Generation in Building Integrated PV

Building integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) is emerging as a promising pathway for green zero energy buildings where it can replace traditional construction material and generate electricity at the same time. Though BIPV is at 1% of solar installations globally, with the right incentives and regulations in place it can quickly accelerate. We know that a solar panel is known to perform the best when it is south facing and is latitude tilted (it produces 1500 Kwh/Kwp). However, in a BIPV system an East or West facing building facade obtains sunshine for only one half of the day and gives a yield of only 800 Kwh/kwp (Won Jun Choi, Hong Jin Joo, Jae-Wan Park, Sang-kyun Kim, Jae-Bum Lee, Power Generation Performance of Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Systems in a Zero Energy Building, Energies 2019, 12, 2471; doi:10.3390/en12132471). The primary challenge in BIPV is that the panels have high capture losses due to the sub-optimal orientation of the panels and thermal related losses due to the lack of air spaces. At Renkube we intend to solve the challenge of improving the energy production in a vertically mounted panel. We have developed an innovative PV panel design that can increase the energy production of BIPV modules by upto 20% for different wall orientations. Our panel uses patented geometric patterns created on the top surface of the glass to better capture more sunlight coming at an oblique angle of incidence and redirect it to the solar cell. We provide detailed simulation studies conducted for different building wall orientations of our BIPV panels and for different locations from Singapore to Laddak. We also highlight the annual performance and seasonal gains of our panels. This technology has potential to further reduce the installation prices of the BIPV system.