Performance simulation of semi-transparent photovoltaic glass on a skylight for commercial building

• Published in: Pesquisa em arquitetura e construção : PARC Vol. 12; p. e021009
• Main Authors: Dutra, Leno Pôrto, Salamoni, Isabel Tourinho, Cunha, Eduardo Grala da
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Estadual de Campinas 05.02.2021
• Subjects: Computational simulation; EnergyPlus; Photovoltaic solar energy; Semi-transparent photovoltaic modules
• ISSN: 1980-6809; 1980-6809
• DOI: 10.20396/parc.v12i00.8657973

The demand for energy in buildings is a worldwide research subject due to its importance in the global electric load share. Besides, photovoltaic conversion to generate electricity locally is one of the ways to meet that demand. This work aims to evaluate the application of semi-transparent photovoltaic glass on a skylight of a commercial building and estimate electricity consumption and production using computational simulation with EnergyPlus. The opening size was set as a variable parameter. Its performance was compared to an ordinary skylight and opaque modules under the same conditions for three different Brazilian bioclimatic zones. Results show that the area's change provided significant differences in generation and less important ones in consumption. Among the bioclimatic zones, the building presented the lowest consumption and the highest generation for all configurations in the coldest zone, making it the best region for net electricity, i.e., purchased from a utility. Comparing semi-transparent with opaque modules, the latter produced much more energy, but consumption was reduced by an average of 28% in favour of the photovoltaic glass. The main conclusion is that the use of photovoltaic technology in a semi-transparent glass is promising regarding the integration of generators to the building, but the efficiency rates need to increase to bring it closer to opaque modules in performance.