Volume 1: Energy Innovations: Accelerated Deployment, New Concepts, and Emerging Technologies

Investigation on the overall energy performance of a novel vacuum semi-transparent photovoltaic glazing in cold regions of China Changyu Qiu, Hongxing Yang*

Abstract

In recent years, as a multifunctional application of photovoltaic technologies, building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) glazing is used to generate power while natural lighting is provided as part of building façade. Unlike those PV windows made by crystalline silicon solar cells, the semi-transparent cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (STPV) windows can admit natural daylight with a certain degree of transmittance without any shading. Therefore, it can provide better visual comfort to occupants. Adopting STPV windows will also affect the overall building energy consumption due to the low solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC). The thermal feature of common STPV windows can be beneficial for reducing the cooling load in the summer. However, when adopting the STPV windows in the heating-dominated regions, it will increase the heating load as most of the solar heat gain will be blocked by the solar cells in the PV windows. To improve the thermal insulation performance of STPV glazing, a novel vacuum photovoltaic insulated glass unit (VPV IGU) is proposed. This paper investigated the overall energy performance of a typical office in Harbin mounted with the innovative vacuum PV glazing systems. Two different configurations of the vacuum PV glazing were compared by the simulation work conducted by EnergyPlus. The results show that the first configuration, which the vacuum glazing is the internal layer, has better thermal performance from April to October, while the second configuration, the one with the vacuum glazing as an external layer, has superior thermal performance in winter as solar heat gain through PV glazing can contribute to indoor heating. The combination of STPV glazing and vacuum glazing may provide a significant energy saving potential in cold regions of China

Keywords semi-transparent photovoltaic (STPV) [pdfviewer width="600px" height="100%" beta="true/false"]http://www.energy-proceedings.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/AEAB2019_paper_63.pdf[/pdfviewer]glazing, vacuum glazing, overall energy performance