PVSITES: Supporting large-scale market uptake of Building-Integrated Photovoltaic technologies

The identified large potential for energy savings in buildings led the European Commission to adopt Directive 2010/31/EU, mandating that all new buildings in Europe must be Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) by 2020. Renewable energy technologies and in particular the integration of photovoltaic systems in the built environment offer many possibilities to enable NZEB realizations. However, a continuous development of the building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) market in the next years necessarily demands the compliance with strict requirements in terms of design flexibility, aesthetics, durability, cost reduction, grid integration, testing standards and operation & maintenance. Within this context, a European consortium of 15 partners contributes to the Horizon 2020 PVSITES project, developing BIPV technologies and systems for large-scale market deployment. The project demonstrates an ambitious set of BIPV solutions, specially tailored to provide a comprehensive and robust answer to market demands. This paper focuses on some of the major results achieved at the time of writing. These include a detailed BIPV market and regulatory framework analysis and recommendations for the standardization of BIPV products. Novel developments of glazed crystalline silicon modules for BIPV integration are presented, with both opaque and see-thru variations. Also included are the selection of a battery technology best suited for inclusion in a custom-made building energy management system (BEMS), as well as a BIM-compatible software tool to assist the design of BIPV projects by architects and construction actors.