Facade and rooftop PV installation strategy for building integrated photo voltaic application

Building integrated photo voltaic (BIPV) is an emerged research topic to optimize building component replacement using certain types of photo voltaic (PV) module. This paper conducts a strategic review on the optimum PV module installation to generate electricity from the building envelope. The facades and rooftops would be an object of building envelope to be deposited with a specific characteristic installation of PV module. Facade installation will be affected by the geographical position of the site, so a certain directions shall perform a higher electric energy production than the other directions. Recent calculations of the inclination angle of attaching the PV module in the selected walls indicates that an optimum angle in horizontal and vertical inclination. The calculation also uses installation distance to module length ratio to achieve a greater solar insulation on the PV modules. Rooftop installation will consider the curved rooftop as a potential feeder either it was bonded or mounted. It is believed that overall performance of curved PV installation could outperform flat PV installation in certain time. Other calculation also performed to observe effective load carrying capacity (ELCC) against PV penetration level to perceive the optimum PV penetration level for high ELCC without resulting operational problems. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.