Building integrated low concentration solar system for a self-sustainable Mediterranean villa: The Astonyshine house

In the last few years different concentrating solar systems have been proposed for building integration, since these systems allow a more flexible use of space, compared to conventional flat modules. In particular, concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems can take advantage of higher conversion efficiencies and thus of a larger amount of energy per square meter, especially in sunny and dry climates where the direct normal irradiance (DNI) is high. In this paper we present the Solar F-Light concentrator - a low-concentration building-integrated solar system for electric power production or water preheating, partial shading and building illumination - that has been first presented at the international competition Solar Decathlon Europe (SDE) 2012 in the Astonyshine villa. Astonyshine is a Mediterranean self-sustainable passive house with minimum energy consumption, whose electricity demand is satisfied by an array of 46 photovoltaic Solar F-Light modules generating a nominal power of 1380 W. In addition, an array of 6 thermal Solar F-Light modules generates a thermal power of 880 W. We will describe the structure and the performance of the Solar F-Light modules, together with the Astonyshine villa energy balance. Finally, possible ways to improve the energy performance will be reviewed, on the basis of the results obtained during SDE 2012.