A Simulation Study of Air-Type Building-Integrated Photovoltaic-Thermal System

The building-integrated photovoltaic-thermal (BIPVT) collector combines PV panels with solar thermal collectors that applies as a building envelope material to produce both thermal and electrical energy at the same time. The air based BIPVT system applied to buildings can be an outer layer to make building envelope double-layers, so that the thermal characteristics of a building with the envelope system could be different from normal walls due to the heat generated from PV panels. Therefore, the envelope of building with BIPVT system is different from that of existing building and may take different impact on the building energy loads. Also, the building energy performance varies according to the energy obtained from the system. This study aims to evaluate the electrical and thermal performance of the air type BIPVT system, and to analyze the energy performance of building with the air type BIPVT system applied as the building envelope. For this study, building models with BIPV and BIPVT were compared through TRNSYS simulation results.