Performance monitoring of a building-integrated photovoltaic system in an urban area

This paper focuses on the performance monitoring of a building-integrated PV system located in an urban area. The building has a rated power of 76 kW array consisting of sub-arrays installed on the north, south and west walls, and north and south roofs. The field data acquisition has been continued since June 2001. In order to compare with the monitoring results, simulation for produced DC energy is carried out using a software package of PVFORM with standard meteorological data for Kobe. According to measured data, monthly energy seems to depend on the length of daytime for each month. From comparison of measured with calculated energy outputs, it would seem that the neighboring buildings has an effect on the energy performance of an actual PV system in an urban area.