Abstract
Solar energy is expected to be the fastest developing of the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in the next years. With the introduction of Distributed Generation into space limited urban areas, the need to find new solutions that allow the installations of Photovoltaic (PV) systems in cities has become crucial for the constant and sustainable energetic development of the world. This study presents new experimental and simulation analyses of the implementation of vertical Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV), one of the most accepted alternatives for the installation of PV technologies in urban areas. Emphasis is made on the viability of BIPV in selected tropical regions from an energy generation standpoint. The results suggest that the implementation of these technologies is viable for urban spaces in the studied regions, as it was found that east and west facing vertical modules require only twice the space of horizontal modules to equal their energy generation, and the vertical area available in buildings can be up to 20 times larger than the horizontal. Additionally, energy generation in this location was found to be relatively constant throughout the year for east and west facing vertical BIPV installations.
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