An empirical study on a variety of solar panels in BIPV power conversion applications

The dynamic nature of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) power conversion applications has given rise to the performance evaluation issues of power capacity and generation. We present an empirical study of four solar panel types including polysilicon double-sided glass light through modules; single side color polysilicon opacity glass modules; amorphous silicon thin-film modules; and stack-type μ-crystalline silicon membrane modules, which are located at four different sites of a construction. We have (1) designed BIPV experimental platform (housing) with a four-person office and a showroom, that allows us to specify and detect different kinds of solar panel structure power flows, (2) implemented four solar panel structures to explore the accuracy of PV simulation results, and (3) used the monitoring system to conduct a large-scale empirical study over the 12 months power generation of four individual power flows. Our survey shows that system performance ratio at the sloping roof is 80.60%; at the right side of the building wall is 65.49%; at the facade electric windows site is 73.62%; and at the facade awning site is 56.43%. Thus, the installation of a PV module associated with direction, azimuth, and shading are the essentially influencing factors on the power generation of photovoltaic solar panels, and those factors can be useful design parameters in order to optimize a PV system for an architectural BIPV application.