Furthermore, the company says BIPV provides both the improved aesthetics and necessary energy efficiency that will allow property developers and owners to better compete in stagnating real estate markets. ??
The report, Building Integrated Photovoltaics Opportunities: 2010 explains: Innovative Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) products and solutions provide a strategy for the PV industry to compete in an increasingly crowded marketplace. By comparison with standard PV products, BIPV products provide two key benefits to customers: improved aesthetics and cost benefits when the total cost of a building is taken into consideration. From the manufacturers perspective they also add the ability to strongly distinguish their products in a marketplace in which solar panels are rapidly becoming commodities imported from low-cost manufacturing plants.
However, the business case for BIPV is not based entirely on the idea that it will make next generation solar panels prettier than the current generation. It also promises an improvement in the cost of building structures incorporating PV. This will be achieved by shifting the cost of PV systems from isolated panel, installation, and balance-of-system costs to more of a shared cost structure; one that is split between the power-generating system and the architectural system.
It continues: By incorporating PV modules into building materials – and forming dual- or multi-purpose products that serve building skin functions as well as power generating ones – BIPV products have the potential to reduce costs. Because conventional roofing products, cladding, etc. are not needed when the BIPV products serve those functions considerable savings are possible.
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Becky Beetz
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