Brief description

In implementing Paris agreement and keeping the mean temperature increase lower than 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels, deep decarbonization is required with the utilization of renewable energy sources (RES). In the proposed actions of WGIII, the integration of renewables such as building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) in the buildings is a key component and a step forward to distributed energy systems with high contribution from buildings, becoming prosumers. The European Green Deal prioritizes energy efficient actions, improvements in building energy performance and development of a RES energy sector. In this context, the key objective of the BIPV-city project is to conduct a holistic investigation on the effect of local climatic conditions and energy flows in BIPV deployment and predict the current area limitation and technological improvements boundaries. Moreover, the BIPV-city project aims to develop a novel BIPV architectural climatic design as an online tool for representative climatic conditions of the extended Koppen-Geiger classification scheme proposed recently by researchers of the project.

Target

Building structure is the interface between humans and their natural environment and sustainable development requires a rethinking of the photovoltaics integration in harmony to local environmental and bioclimatic conditions. The necessity of climate crisis mitigation points towards moving beyond the self-sufficient and self-consumption concepts into positive energy sharing within local communities.

The characterization of BIPV technologies and their integration flexibility in a particular building component is a multifunctional process. So far, the multi-functionality is primarily being studied in terms of electrotechnical and building requirements. We have recently shown that local climate is an important parameter in the determination of the optimal and most appropriate PV technology solution for PV building integration towards the improvement of energy and environmental performance with thermal comfort and indoor air quality. Local climate affects the BIPV sequence in reaching NZEBs and prioritizes the PV component integration at a specific location.

However, each building is a unit of an urban block and mutual thermal and radiation interaction and/or RES sharing should be also investigated. In this context, the proposal aims to investigate the three-component interaction of building energy performance-urban form-local climate in a step-by-step process of PV building integration towards positive energy districts. It is anticipated a major contribution in this inter-disciplinary scientific field of the transition to carbon-neutral cities with a wider BIPV scientific audience and a final aim of zero GHG emissions. By developing an online BIPV climatic design tool and a digitalized participatory method, we will increase the educational sources and resources towards a major societal long-term learning and building capacity across science, engineering, and energy.