Vasiliev, M.; Rosenberg, V.; Lyford, J.; Goodfield, D. Field Performance Monitoring of Energy-Generating High-Transparency Agrivoltaic Glass Windows. Technologies2023, 11, 95.
Vasiliev, M.; Rosenberg, V.; Lyford, J.; Goodfield, D. Field Performance Monitoring of Energy-Generating High-Transparency Agrivoltaic Glass Windows. Technologies 2023, 11, 95.
Vasiliev, M.; Rosenberg, V.; Lyford, J.; Goodfield, D. Field Performance Monitoring of Energy-Generating High-Transparency Agrivoltaic Glass Windows. Technologies2023, 11, 95.
Vasiliev, M.; Rosenberg, V.; Lyford, J.; Goodfield, D. Field Performance Monitoring of Energy-Generating High-Transparency Agrivoltaic Glass Windows. Technologies 2023, 11, 95.
Abstract
Currently there are strong and sustained growth trends observed in multi-disciplinary industrial technologies such as building-integrated photovoltaics and agrivoltaics, where renewable energy production is featured in building envelopes of varying degrees of transparency. Novel glass products can provide a combination of thermal energy savings and solar energy harvesting, enabled by either patterned-semiconductor thin-film energy converters on glass substrates, or by using luminescent concentrator-type approaches to achieve high transparency. Significant progress has been demonstrated recently in building integrated solar windows featuring visible light transmission of up to 70%, with electric power outputs of up to Pmax ~ 30-33 Wp/m2. Several slightly different designs were tested during 2021-2023 in a greenhouse installation at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. The objective of this paper is to report on the field performance of these PV windows in the context of agrivoltaics, and to provide some detail of the performance differences measured in several solar window designs related to their glazing structure materials. Methods for the identification and quantification of long-term field performance differences and energy generation trends in solar windows of marginally different design types are reported. The paper also aims to outline the practical application potential of these transparent construction materials in built environments, focussing on the measured renewable energy figures and seasonal trends observed during the long-term study.
Keywords
building-integrated photovoltaics; solar windows; agrivoltaics; renewable energy
Subject
Physical Sciences, Applied Physics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
