A Road Map to Detect the Foremost 3E Potential Areas for Installation of PV Façade Technology Using Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Abstract

A procedure to prioritize the cities to utilize a building integrated photovoltaic thermal (BIPV/T) system is proposed in which the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is employed as a systematic decision-making method. Electricity generation and heat recovery in a year from the energy side, levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), and payback period (PBP) from the economic viewpoint, as well as the carbon dioxide savings from the environmental perspective, are taken into account as the decision criteria. They are the key economic, environmental, and energy (3E) performance indicators of the system. The novelty of the proposed research approach is two items. The first item is systematic and could be employed for each and every case. Moreover, another item is that selection is made based on energy, economic, and environmental (3E) criteria all together, as the important aspects of an energy system. Having introduced the procedure, it is utilized to rank five cities in Iran for the installation of BIPV/T technologies. The cities are Tehran, Tabriz, Yazd, Rasht, and Bandar Abbas, where each one is a populated city from one of the climatic conditions of the country. According to the results, a high priority is seen for two cities: the first city is Yazd with the highest ambient temperature and relative humidity among the alternatives, and the other city is Tehran, with the highest natural gas and electricity tariffs, as well as the greatest price for operating and maintenance. The values of heat recovery, electricity generation, carbon dioxide savings, PBP, and LCOE for Yazd are 42.3 MWh, 23.4 MWh, 16.8 tons, 5.48 years, and 9.45 cents per kWh. The corresponding values for Tehran are 35.6 MWh, 21.6 MWh, 15.0 tons, 2.79 years, and 8.71 cents per kWh, respectively.