Abstract
This study investigates a naturally-ventilated photovoltaic (PV) façade for high-rise buildings by conducting simulation study. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach was adopted for modelling the temperature and airflow distributions around the naturally-ventilated and conventional PV facades of a case building. The simulation results show that the surface temperature of the naturally-ventilated PV façade is obviously lower than that of the conventional PV facade. The PV cell efficiency of the naturally-ventilated PV facade with different tilt angles was calculated by using simulation results and was found to be higher than conventional PV façade. This paper proved that in comparison with conventional PV facade, the naturally-ventilated PV facade can achieve lower surface temperature of the PV module and thus improving its power generation efficiency. However, experimental study and economic analysis still need to be carried out in future for wider application of the naturally-ventilated PV facade.
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