BIPV

The solar skylight has a peak power of 20kW. It is made up of 70 crystalline silicon photovoltaic glass modules of different sizes and shapes.

The Sun Rock building is owned by Taiwan’s power utility Taipower. It was covered with 4,000 square meters of PV panels deployed by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV.

Australian solar window supplier ClearVue says its products can reduce carbon emissions in buildings by as much as 90%, while California-based BIPV window coating producer Ubiquitous Energy has raised $70 million to scale up its own tech.

Deployment in the building integrated PV segment is accelerating, and so too are the number of solar products available to architects and developers. And while BIPV had long been the segment in which an array of thin-film technologies could shine, they are now in increasingly stiff competition with crystalline silicon rivals.

Designed by scientists in Germany, the module facade has to be integrated with a building’s technical equipment. The rooms behind the facade can be supplied with solar power and at the same time heated, cooled and ventilated.

GAF Energy manufactures its Timberline solar tiles at a new facility in California. It claims that the Timberline Solar roof system is unique because it directly integrates solar technology into traditional roofing processes and materials.

The PV industry in 2021 has largely been defined by disruption: Price increases from raw materials to final shipping have led to shortages in PV module supply and project delays the world over. Despite these upsets, innovation has continued at pace, and the year has seen plenty of technological twists and turns that are sure to spell good news for solar in the long run. Read on for a look back at some of the biggest developments.

Italian manufacturer Solarday has launched a glass-glass building-integrated monocrystalline PERC panel available in red, green, gold and grey color. Its power conversion efficiency is 17.98% and its temperature coefficient is -0.39% per degree Celsius.

The 5.5%-efficient cell was fabricated through a low-temperature, two-step manufacturing process that is compatible with existing window glass manufacturing technology. Cells made with 70nm antimony trisulfide films achieved the best fill factor of around 57%, while the highest power conversion efficiencies were achieved with films ranging from 70 to 100nm.

Dutch researchers have used optic colored filters to make building-integrated PV products more suitable for urban environments with cultural heritage value. They discovered that the filters do not affect a cell’s open-circuit voltage and fill factor, but only the short-circuit current.