Overview of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems in Hong Kong

Abstract

Alternative energies, other than fossil fuels, are the one of the logical ways for reducing green house gas emissions and for sustainable development. Hence, in recent years, governments all over the world have been stepped up their push in exploring more opportunities in this area. Photovoltaic (PV) technology is, of course, one of promising candidates in alternative energies in most parts of the world. It is predicted that the cumulative worldwide installed PV capacity will reach 70GW by 2020 [1]. To cope with the problem of high initial cost of PV installations, the concept of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) has been introduced; such that the PV panels can be used for serving purposes of some standard building components other than generating electricity. By this way the marginal cost of a PV system can be greatly reduce to a more acceptable level. In Hong Kong, a number of medium-scale BIPV systems were completed in last few years. These BIPV projects included government building, commercial building, schools, institutional building. The power rating the BIPV system for each project is in the order of tens of kilowatts. Most of these BIPV systems are gird-connected type to eliminate the bulky and troublesome battery banks. Some of these projects are retrofitting on existing buildings; while some are parts of a new building. The paper will give some details on the design of these PV systems.