Assessment of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) for sustainable energy performance in tropical regions of Cameroon

Cameroon produces 1292 MW of electricity out of which 57% is through hydraulic resources and the remaining 43% through fossil fuels resources. The access to this electricity is limited to 10% of population in the rural areas and 50% in the urban areas. To meet the demand of electricity for domestic purpose as well as for businesses, farms and manufacturing, the squeeze on resources will become unsustainable unless renewable resources become part of the mix. In this paper, the review of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) systems and its potential in the tropical region is presented. An analysis is made for a residential apartment fitted with BIPV as roof top in tropical climate of Cameroon to meet principle energy demand of 3 kW per day. Modelling of the system is done to predict the indoor air temperatures and humidity (LATH) considering all the internal heat sources and thermal insulation of the envelope. The analysis shows that such system is capable of reducing annual primary energy consumption from 79.58 kW h/m(2) to 13.64 kW h/m(2) in addition to reduction in the amount spent on building materials for structured roof and the labour.