Lecture

Building Integrated Photovoltaic Systems

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In course

ENV-370: Environmental system analysis and assessment

Les enjeux environnementaux doivent être abordés de façon systémique. L'Analyse du Cycle de Vie (ACV) et l'Analyse de Flux de Matière (AFM) sont des méthodes permettant d'évaluer de façon globale les performances environnementales des produits, des service ...

Description

This lecture covers the analysis of cost cycles and other performances of building integrated photovoltaic systems, including the simulation of a circadian cycle, product costs, and secondary functions. It also discusses the data required to model BIPV systems in SimaPro.

Instructors (3)

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer

Claudia R. Binder, a Swiss, Canadian and Colombian citizen, was born in Montreal and spent most of her childhood in Switzerland and Colombia. She studied at ETH Zurich from 1985 to 1996, earning a degree in biochemistry and then a PhD in environmental sciences. After conducting her post-doctoral research at the University of Maryland in the US from 1996 to 1998, she returned to Switzerland and took a position as a senior research scientist at ETH Zurich, studying the interaction between human and environmental systems at the Institute for Natural and Social Science Interface. In 2006, Binder joined the University of Zurich as an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, and in 2009 moved to the University of Graz in Austria where she served as a full professor of systems science. In 2011, she took a position at the University of Munich’s Department of Geography as a full professor of human-environment relations. Binder joined EPFL in March 2016 and set up the Laboratory for Human-Environment Relations in Urban Systems (HERUS) at ENAC; she also holds the La Mobilière Chair on Urban Ecology and Sustainable Living. Her research involves analyzing, modelling and assessing the transition of urban systems towards sustainability. She looks in particular at how we can better understand the dynamics of urban metabolism, what characterizes a sustainable city, and what drives and hinders transformation processes. She does so by combining knowledge from social, natural and data science. Her research focuses on food, energy, and sustainable living and transport in urban systems. In Switzerland, Binder was appointed to the Research Council, Programs Division of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in 2016 and serves on the Steering Committee of the SNSF’s National Research Program 71, “Managing Energy Consumption” and the Swiss Competence Centers for Energy Research (SCCER). She is also a member of the Steering Board on Sustainability Research for the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, she was elected as a member of the University Council of the University of Munich (LMU). At EPFL, Binder is the academic director of Design Together, a cross-disciplinary teaching initiative. She was appointed to the management team of the Energy Center in 2018 and as head of the working group on EPFL’s energy and sustainability strategy in 2019.

Aristide Henri Roger Athanassiadis

Aristide has a joint-PhD in Urbanism from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and The University of Melbourne on the topic of comprehensive urban environmental assessments. Since 2018, he was co-Chair of Circular Economy and Urban Metabolism at the Université Libre de Bruxelles where he advised local administrations on the regional circular economy plan and facilitated exchanges between researchers, policy makers and practitioners in order to develop projects that helped Brussels' economy and metabolism transition towards a more circular state. During the last years, he has collaborated and worked with/for several universities, research centres, environmental administrations, NGOs, youth organisations and consultancy firms on a great variety of projects around the topics of urban metabolism and circular economy. Finally, Aristide co-created the non-profit organisation and open-source initiative Metabolism of Cities (www.metabolismofcities.org) that aims to bring to create, share and apply urban metabolism knowledge, in policy and practice.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Energy engineering

Solar power: Topics in solar power

Related concepts (32)

Grid-connected photovoltaic power system

A grid-connected photovoltaic system, or grid-connected PV system is an electricity generating solar PV power system that is connected to the utility grid. A grid-connected PV system consists of solar panels, one or several inverters, a power conditioning unit and grid connection equipment. They range from small residential and commercial rooftop systems to large utility-scale solar power stations. When conditions are right, the grid-connected PV system supplies the excess power, beyond consumption by the connected load, to the utility grid.

Photovoltaics

Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially used for electricity generation and as photosensors. A photovoltaic system employs solar modules, each comprising a number of solar cells, which generate electrical power. PV installations may be ground-mounted, rooftop-mounted, wall-mounted or floating.

Solar-cell efficiency

Solar-cell efficiency refers to the portion of energy in the form of sunlight that can be converted via photovoltaics into electricity by the solar cell. The efficiency of the solar cells used in a photovoltaic system, in combination with latitude and climate, determines the annual energy output of the system. For example, a solar panel with 20% efficiency and an area of 1 m2 will produce 200 kWh/yr at Standard Test Conditions if exposed to the Standard Test Condition solar irradiance value of 1000 W/m2 for 2.

Solar inverter

A solar inverter or photovoltaic (PV) inverter is a type of power inverter which converts the variable direct current (DC) output of a photovoltaic solar panel into a utility frequency alternating current (AC) that can be fed into a commercial electrical grid or used by a local, off-grid electrical network. It is a critical balance of system (BOS)–component in a photovoltaic system, allowing the use of ordinary AC-powered equipment.

Cadmium telluride photovoltaics

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaics is a photovoltaic (PV) technology based on the use of cadmium telluride in a thin semiconductor layer designed to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity. Cadmium telluride PV is the only thin film technology with lower costs than conventional solar cells made of crystalline silicon in multi-kilowatt systems. On a lifecycle basis, CdTe PV has the smallest carbon footprint, lowest water use and shortest energy payback time of any current photovoltaic technology.

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