RESEARCHSPOTLIGHT
Building-Integrated PV
As the cost of PV reduces towards ‘grid parity’, the rate of expansion of the PV industry will continue to increase rapidly. Building integrated products, which comprise an integral part of a building’s façade, windows, walls or roof will form a significant proportion of this expanding market, and so are an important focus for research and development at CREST.
76
Jake Bowers inspects a thin film CdTe PV device deposited using magnetron sputtering
that utilise asymmetric compound parabolic concentrators which are non-tracking and provide concentrations of 2.45x with efficiency and performance similar to a standard silicon module. Optical performance and heat sinking requirements for concentrations in the range from 50x to 300x have also been examined with ray trace and finite element heat transfer models developed. Collimated solar simulators have been developed to enable indoor characterisation of line-axis and point focus PV concentrator units. Infra-red thermography is utilised to non-intrusively measure temperatures for the analysis of heat flow.
Work in the area of solar thermal systems includes the design, development and characterisation of efficient Compound Parabolic Concentrators for regions with high diffuse radiation fractions, applications including water heating and driving building cooling systems. Research is ongoing to develop high energy density thermal storage for a range of temperature applications from 55 to 200oC. The modelling techniques used include a suite of in-house developed ray trace and finite element/finite volume heat transfer models that can be adapted to suit particular applications.
CREST has been active in BIPV since 1995 when it was involved in the development of one of the world’s first ventilated PV facades at the Mataro library in Barcelona. Since then, capabilities have been developed in both pre-construction performance assessment and post-construction metrology. Today, this involves advanced dynamic simulation of whole-system PV performance along with comprehensive real-time monitoring of a wide range of building-integrated products in the field to support the development of optimal next generation mass market building-integrated PV products. To this end, CREST collaborates with leading industry partners world-wide including building procurers, architects, developers as well as PV technology and power conditioning equipment manufacturers.
Working with the Solar Industry With expertise across the board of PV technologies and its range of applications, CREST offers a comprehensive resource for small and larger organisations interested in developing solar products. The Centre possesses a range of solar characterisation and assessment tools and access to state of the art ion and electron optical techniques and surface analysis tools. The team is capable of taking on both short term and longer term R&D projects. Staff training and secondments can also be arranged.
The team at CREST is responsive to commercial pressures and running fast at Loughborough has always been a particular strength. CREST is establishing a useful track record in PV.
Work in the area of solar thermal systems includes the design, development and characterisation of efficient Compound Parabolic Concentrators for regions with high diffuse radiation fractions, applications including water heating and driving building cooling systems
www.solar-pv-management.com Issue V 2010
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80