BIPV

French companies Le Triangle Horizon and SunStyle International are offering a new carport based on solar tiles for areas protected by environmental regulations.

A European research team has sought to combine for the first time perovskite solar cell technology with textile ceramic in a novel building-integrated photovoltaic device. The result is a solar brick with potential for future commercialiation, according to its creators.

A Belgian-Dutch research team has defined new design guidelines for photovoltaics integrated in buildings or infrastructures. The proposed approach, which was validated through two demonstators, supports the manufacturing of semi-fabricates for integrated photovoltaics applications by enabling effective communication between project developers and module producers.

Trinasolar Evergreen (Shanghai) PV Tech. Co., Ltd., a building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) unit of Trina Solar, has launched four new products for public, industrial, and infrastructure projects. Trina Solar aims to capture a share of the fast-growing BIPV market.

Scientists from Denmark have examined three façades installed on a mobile office container to conduct building-integrated PV experiments.

Researchers in China have analyzed the effect of phase change material on BIPV, and created an artificial neural network to forecast its effect on system temperature. The proposed approach reportedly achieved superior predictive performance compared to earlier methods.

Researchers from Poland have assessed how texturized glass used as the front cover of building-integrated photovoltaic panels affects performance. They have found power yield could be up to 5% lower compared to modules based on conventional glass, with reflection parameters being up to 88% in visible region.

Swiss module manufacturer Freesuns has installed 33,300 of its solar roof tiles on three historical buildings in the Swiss town of Neuchâtel.

Scientists have designed a new building-integrated PV system that uses 30 mm of phase change material on each side of the wall. The array reportedly achieved superior thermoelectric coupling performance compared to reference BIPV systems without PCM.

The 41st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (EU PVSEC) will draw to a close in Vienna this afternoon. Discussions at this year’s event leave little doubt that solar installations will continue to see impressive growth over the coming years. All week there has been plenty of optimism around new policy and technical innovations driving more solar into both electricity grids and urban and rural environments. For Europe, however, the lack of any meaningful capacity for manufacturing these promising technologies locally, puts something of a dampener on things.