Improving the Efficiency of Electricity-Generating Building Envelopes Using a Hybrid System of Flat Concentrator & Photovoltaic Panels (FCPV) in South Facade

The capacity of buildings to use solar radiance to supply their energy needs via absorbing sun-light energy through the outer envelope makes it so vital to have a substantial consideration to the design of buildings’ shell as an energy-efficient element. The amount of electrical energy output of a building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) relates to various factors such as solar incidence of its platform, optimum orientation of building toward the Sun, form of its shell as well as the efficiency of photovoltaic modules used within the system as electricity generator. From mentioned factors, the form of a building envelope can intensify the yield of a BIPV system by being integrated to solar plain concentrators which known as CPV system. This research tries to monitor the effect of reflection on BIPV envelope efficiency improvement by doing an experimental test in which the increase of the output of a south-oriented photovoltaic module under a flat mirror reflection has been evaluated. The research concludes an improvement equal to 13.19% in output power by adding the flat mirror on the east/west sides of the module and 11.19% increase for a flat horizontal mirror perpendicular to the PV on southern façade. On the other hand, the research recommends the angle of 26 degrees inclination from the east and west for mirrors to reach to their best solar situation in which there is no shading effect on the PV surface. Moreover, results of this research shows that the best proportion for a rectangular mirror as a reflector is when its depth to height ratio is 0.5 or D/H=0.5. The research is categorized as an applied research which uses experimental-descriptive method to reach the goals.