A study of the potential benefits of semi-transparent photovoltaics in commercial buildings

This study investigates the potential benefits of semi-transparent photovoltaic windows on the energy, daylighting and thermal performance of commercial buildings. A general simulation methodology is proposed and utilized, integrating thermal, electrical and daylighting analysis. The impact of various building design parameters on the selection of ideal optical properties of semi-transparent photovoltaics is examined. The potential performance of Poly-Si, a-Si/μc-Si and organic cell technologies is also studied. The selection of the module optical properties is shown to be sensitive on the daylight and lighting controls applied and photovoltaic cell technology utilized. The selection of a semi-transparent photovoltaic module with 10% visible effective transmittance resulted in the lowest annual end-use electricity consumption (as low as 5 kW h/m2/yr). Finally, simulation results suggest that high cell operating temperatures of up to 64 °C could occur that might cause accelerated degradation when organic thin film technologies are used.