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Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) technology could make a substantial contribution to Australias energy transition, but an industry expert says a lack of awareness of the technologys value and versatility means it remains underutilised.
Rooftop solar has skyrocketed in Australia, with 4 million homes and small businesses now fitted with solar panels, but the market for solar PV remains largely untapped.
Rebecca Yang, director of the Solar Energy Applications Laboratory at RMIT University in Melbourne, says BIPV offers great potential as a local energy source, but its contribution to Australias total PV generation is very limited.
"There are some medium-sized commercial projects underway and some small ones across Australia, but their uptake has been comparatively slow," he explained.
Yang, who will speak at the three-day Asia-Pacific Solar Research Conference in Sydney this week, attributed the delay to concerns about performance and safety, and engineering issues related to design, installation and maintenance.
Yang also highlighted the construction sectors lack of understanding of the BIPV value proposition.
“The construction industry doesn’t have a very clear idea of ??the value of these products,” he says. “The value is not just about kilowatts per square metre. We are also talking about the value in terms of replacement of the building material, and its impact on the indoor environment.”
Yang also highlighted the power generation pattern supported by BIPV products, saying they enable developers to better adjust supply and demand patterns for individual environments and help overcome the solar duck curve, when excess power generated by rooftop solar significantly exceeds underlying load demand.
"It is very different from conventional photovoltaics, because it is more personalized, with different types of options," he explains.
“The orientation of BIPV panels on building facades is very different from that for rooftop installations,” he said. “If you orient BIPV panels well, for example by installing the façade materials on the east and west sides of a building, you can potentially achieve good results in the morning and afternoon, allowing power generation to coincide with peak demand periods.”
Despite the slow pace of deployment of the technology, Yang remains optimistic about the prospects for BIPV and predicts a boom in the coming years.
"I think well see a boom in the next five years," he says. "Theres more and more interest from the construction sector, not just in Australia but also in North America."
"The US government has been very supportive of this sector, and so has Europe, and there is already a lot of support in China."
Yang explained that it is now up to the Australian government to provide support "not only for integrated construction, but also for the integration of photovoltaic infrastructure, such as noise barriers."
“There are huge opportunities,” he said. “We just need that support to help the industry understand and unlock the value that BIPV brings.” |
