Defining BIPV

Dec 10 2021

Incorporating solar into our built environments represents an opportunity for hundreds of gigawatts to be installed worldwide without taking up any additional land. In many cases though, this will require solutions beyond typical rooftop PV installations and much closer cooperation between the PV and construction industries. A new report published by IEA PVPS looks to bring together the interests of both worlds, and clearly categorize both the building envelope and energy functions of different BIPV components.

Reaching consensus on what building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) is and what makes it different from conventional rooftop PV is one of the challenges that the emerging BIPV industry has to deal with if it wants to move from niche to mainstream.

With this in mind, a group of experts from the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA PVPS) put together a report that seeks to bring together piecemeal developments from different regions into a clear set of standards, and clearly defined functions for different products, in terms of their roles as both construction materials and energy generators.
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