A building-integrated photovoltaic prototype for calculating solar orientation and solar insolation Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • The renewable energy systems such as a Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BiPV) installed as building components often influence the aesthetic quality of a building. This becomes crucial especially in the case of a sun- Tracking photovoltaic system that is installed on a wall or a roof of the building. Hence, it is important for a building designer to calculate and visualize the movement of a sun- Tracking BiPV over an entire day. Moreover, there is a lack of a reasonably accurate but quick method to estimate the amount of global solar insolation received at a given location. Existing global insolation models require data that are either unavailable or difficult to obtain. Such models are not very helpful to building professionals interested in determining the economic feasibility of a BiPV system based on the amount of renewable energy it generates. A Building Information Model can perform both the visualization of BIPV's movement and the global solar insolation calculation to help building professionals compare the feasibility of various BiPV options. This paper develops a BiPV prototype to visualize the movement of sun- Tracking BiPV modules and to calculate the global insolation using readily available weather information. The BiPV prototype utilizes the Autodesk Revit Architecture as a BIM platform. We used a solar insolation model proposed in the literature to develop the prototype and computed global solar insolation for twelve locations in the United States. The calculated values of global solar insolation are compared with the measured insolation data to validate the results. The measured global insolation values are sourced from the Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC), National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Finally, we discussed the significance of the research and identified the future research needs.

published proceedings

  • 14th International Conference of IBPSA - Building Simulation 2015, BS 2015, Conference Proceedings

author list (cited authors)

  • Dixit, M., & Yan, W.

complete list of authors

  • Dixit, M||Yan, W

publication date

  • January 2015