New electricity construction materials for roofs and façades

Abstract

At present 1.7 MW p roofs and façades have been installed world wide using the Atlantis photovoltaic (PV) construction materials. These examples have contributed to the general acceptance of PV in the build environment particularly among architects. A new milestone for the generation of solar electricity was set with the novel SUNSLATES ™ roofing and façade system, which was introduced into the market in summer 1997 [1]. The combination of improved aesthetic design — the SUNSLATES ™ can hardly be distinguished from ordinary shingles of slate roofs — and dramatic cost savings are the most important features. These result from virtually eliminating support structures, installation and engineering costs in addition to mass production of standardized elements. The flexibility of SUNSLATES ™ to fit conventional roof designs of various shapes opens the door to its wide spread application. Even roofs of circular and rhomboid like shape have been realized. Further the SUNSLATES ™ have been combined with different types of roofing materials. During the past months SUNSLATES ™ systems have been installed in different countries such as Switzerland, Germany and the USA. A first Japanese project has been realized on the occasion of the Kyoto Conference in December 1997 near Osaka. In Sacramento, California, Atlantis Energy LTD has been selected to install more than 1000 roofs with SUNSLATES ™ as a part of the SMUD initiative. Fig. 1 shows a roof integration of SUNSLATES ™ in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Even in Switzerland with a population of only seven million inhabitants, about 10–14 km 2 of roofs and façades are built or refinished every year. The estimated market for SUNSLATES ™ on these roofs and façades is in the order of 2 mill. m2/year, which would represent an installed capacity of 200 MW/y. Neither technical nor aesthetical obstacles remain against building up a gigantic world wide market for PV roofing systems.