Integration of Solar PV in Buildings

Dear Colleagues,

The integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology in buildings, known as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), is demonstrating a huge potential in the decarbonization of buildings, new and retrofit, by improving the energy-savings of their envelopes and by increasing the local generation of renewable energy. PV modules integrated into the building skin, substituting conventional construction materials, and enabling efficient and sustainable energy generation, are paving the way to nearly-zero-energy buildings.

Nonetheless, much remains to be done from architectonic, engineering, scientific, environmental, and economic perspectives. This Special Issue gives authors the opportunity to collaborate in disseminating their contributions to the progress of BIPV. While best practices and lessons learned from relevant case studies will help to develop better examples and design methods, innovative and advanced materials or digitalization processes will increase the competitiveness of BIPV.

The areas of interest of this Special Issue include approaches such as innovative technical solutions that successfully combine architectonic designs with electric functions, BIPV case studies and lessons learned, BIPV performance monitoring and prediction modeling, energy and economic assessment of BIPV, cost reduction and market strategies, life cycle analysis, socio-environmental studies, modeling and digitalization, pre-normative proposals for guaranteeing the functionality and reliability of BIPV products and systems, optimized self-consumption designs, energy management and storage, and BIPV potential studies.

As a reflection of the multidisciplinarity of BIPV, this Special Issue will collect contributions from all key areas related to this field, becoming a holistic and up-to-date reference of the state-of-the-art of BIPV.  

Dr. Nuria Martín Chivelet
Guest editor

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