building integrated photovoltaics

Heritage buildings face mounting pressure to cut carbon emissions, but traditional solar panels often clash with their historic appearance and face public resistance. Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) offer a discreet alternative, blending solar technology into roofing materials and enabling wider adoption across protected sites. As UK policy increasingly supports solar on historic buildings, BIPV presents a scalable solution that reconciles climate action with architectural preservation.

ArcelorMittal has started producing its Helioroof building-integrated PV modules in France. The steelmaker says the system aims to simplify energy retrofits for commercial and industrial roofs.

Researchers in Germany have examined how battery storage could help façade PV systems move beyond their niche market by 2030. Their findings show that a large majority of south-oriented façades in Europe could be equipped with vertical solar arrays combined with batteries.

An Indian-British research team has developed a building-integrated linear concentrating PV facade by sandwiching an asymmetric compound parabolic concentrator, PERC cells, and encapsulation layers between two sheets of glass. The system was tested under both indoor and outdoor conditions and its payback period was found to be of up to 11 years.

Fraunhofer Institute for Electron Beam and Plasma Technology (FEP) researchers are using roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography to produce visually seamless building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) modules.

ClearVue Technologies says its solar facade solutions, that combine the company’s solar glazing units into a fully integrated energy generating building envelope, have achieved a payback period of less than three years in a Hong Kong government trial.

Denmark’s largest energy community is now under construction, featuring more than 30,000 sqm of solar rooftops with a total capacity of about 4 MW. The project will use building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) on pitched roofs and building-attached photovoltaics (BAPV) on flat roofs from Danish specialist Solartag.

Solartag has developed a 71 W solar tile with a weight 14.2 kg/m² and a power conversion efficiency of 16%. The new product relies on black PERC cells and is standardized for mass production, according to the manufacturer.

The “morphing skin” would track sunlight and have the flexibility and surface area to wrap across large surfaces, such as buildings and stadiums.

Izpitek is launching a new product line using patented tech to embed PV cells in composites, cutting weight by up to 95%.