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SHB Meetings 1999

Joint Meeting
Australian Institute of Physics
and
The Royal Society of NSW

Photovoltaics in Buildings

Dr Muriel Watt
PV Special Research Centre
University of NSW
Sydney, Australia.

Date: July 7th, 1999

ABSTRACT

Over the past 5 years the use of photovoltaics (PV) as an integral part of the building facade, has increased significantly, and is now one of the fastest growing PV markets worldwide. The reasons for this surge of interest vary from country to country, but include environmental, technical, architectural and social aims. There are a number of other significant differences in the Australian situation which impact on the local market for building integrated PV (BIPV). These include the differences in latitude, and hence sun angle, electricity prices, building load profiles, including peak demand, building materials and designs, land availability, reliance on imported fuels, and energy policies.

Building integrated PV products differ from traditional PV systems because they are called upon to perform many functions, not just the generation of electrical energy. This offers a number of advantages:

• system costs can be largely substitutional, with additional land use requirements avoided, because the PV generating system becomes an integral part of the building structure;
• power is produced at the point of end use, so that transmission and distribution costs and losses are minimised. Distribution network reinforcement costs, caused by load growth, can be delayed or reduced;
• power production can match load requirements (eg summer air conditioning loads) so reducing demand charges (customer's perspective) and system peaks (distribution, transmission and generation benefits);
• contributions to domestic electricity loads can be substantial, making it appealing to the residential market;
• in addition to architectural functions and electricity generation, the PV panels can perform other energy roles, such as daylighting (reducing lighting loads), shading, or active heat collection (with heat from the rear of the panels being transferred into the building to reduce heating loads);
• the growing range of PV technologies creates the possibility for architecturally appealing structures.

In the long term and despite its other benefits, BIPV will not retain its attractiveness unless power production levels and the value of the electrical energy produced are significant.

This presentation will discuss the results of a study of the potential of PV products in the NSW market. Analyses were carried out using a model which estimates hourly PV output over the study period from databases of climate and from PV parameters for specified installations on the building envelope. Local data on residential buildings and tariffs were used to determine displaced expenditure on electricity.