Architectural Photovoltaic Application

Today, photovoltaic technology is one of the fastest-growing fields of technology and is becoming the lowest-cost option for electricity generation in the greatest part of the world. Based on IEA projection, the number of households relying on solar PV grows from today’s 25 million to more than 100 million by 2030. Based on this projection, we...

Solar Analysis on Buildings of Favelas in São Paulo to Estimate PV Potential

In the Global South, large urban spaces resulted in the duality between the so-called ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ cities. It is the case of São Paulo, a twenty-two-million people metropolis and a financial hub in Latin America. Albeit a vast literature addresses the social-spatial segregation emerging from this dual built environment, the scarcity...

Solar energy data analytics: PV deployment and land use

EU targets for sustainable development call for strong changes in the current energy systems as well as committed protection of environmental resources. This target conflicts if a policy is not going to promote the compatible solutions to both the issues. This is the case of the additional renewable energy sources to be exploited for...

Photovoltaic and Heritage: Towards the energy transition of the building environment

Reaching a neutral use of energy in the building environment is challenging. That is because, as the population expands, so does the energy consumption. Considering that the building environment is accountable for 40 percent of energy consumption and 36 percent of total CO2 emissions, the building sector has to conform with specific guidelines...

Energetic performance of a combined double skinfaçade with photovoltaic modules placed atvarious locations

There is a 95% certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20thcentury [1]. Burning fossil fuels for energy is the dominant cause of greenhouse gas emissions. 32% of the Dutch energy supply is consumed by the built environment. The façade is the largest area of the building envelope. Consequently, the...

Fast and accurate ray-casting-based view factor estimation method for complex geometries

The concept of view factor has various applications in engineering problems, ranging from heat management to bifacial photovoltaics. Analytical solutions for view factor calculations are difficult to obtain and normally numerical methods are used. For complex geometries, when several surfaces are arbitrarily arranged in a threedimensional...

Solar Cooling Façades: An Integrated Façade Design with Thermoelectric Cooling Systems for Office Buildings in Athens

Nowadays the use of renewable energy resources is a necessity. Approximately 13% of the energy spent in Greece comes from renewable energy resources, however a significantly higher percentage is essential in order to meet the European standards by 2020. A prompt solution is the in-situ energy generation. Additionally, the harmful emmisions of...

Small scale Compressed Air Energy Storage application for renewable energy integration in a listed building

In EU where the architectural heritage is significant, enhancing the energy performance of historical buildings is of great interest. Constraints, such as the lack of space especially within the historical centers and architectural peculiarities, make the application of technologies for renewable energy production and storage a challenging issue...