Sustainability and efficient use of building-integrated photovoltaic curtain wall array (BI-PVCWA) systems in building complex scenarios

Abstract

Photovoltaic Curtain Wall Array (PVCWA) systems in cities are often in Partial Shading Conditions (PSCs) by objects, mainly neighboring buildings, resulting in power loss and even hot spot effects. Changing the topology of the PVCWA system can effectively reduce the losses caused by PSCs. However, current studies rarely consider the annual optimal topology as a whole. Therefore, this paper develops and validates a power model for PVCWA in building complexes, using the model to simulate the power generation of Series(S), Parallel(P), Vertical-Series-Parallel(V-SP), Horizontal-Series-Parallel(H-SP), Vertical-Total-Cross-Tied(V-TCT), and Horizontal-Total-Cross-Tied(H-TCT) arrays in different cities and different surrounding building heights. The results show that the power generation performance of each topology of PVCWA in a building complex varies in real time. With the same building layout, the geographical location has less effect on the power generation ranking of different topologies of PVCWA, but it affects the power generation gap of different topologies. And the surrounding building height affects the shading characteristics of the shaded PVCWA system. H-SP and V-TCT arrays can mitigate the effect of horizontal shading more effectively, while V-SP and H-TCT arrays can mitigate the effect of vertical shading more effectively. This research can provide a basis for the application of PVCWA systems in buildings.