Performance analysis of building integrated photovoltaic of high-rise buildings in urban areas

Abstract

Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) system performance is analyzed with a view to occupying the majority of the unused space of vertical walls and harnessing more incident energy than the conventional solar panel installation system. The BIPV system incorporated in high-rise buildings harnesses irradiance not only from the horizontal surface but also from vertical walls which cannot be harnessed by other installation techniques. For analysis purposes, the environmental impact, like cloud shadow impact, has taken into consideration that shows the vertical walls consisting of four sides (North - East - South - West) can harness almost 49% more energy than the conventional horizontal-based system. Moreover, the analysis also shows the cloud shadow impact is more significant for the horizontally-mounted photovoltaic panels than vertically-mounted photovoltaic panels.