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• LCCA formulation considering different BIPV EOL material recovery and societal benefits. • Investigation of the impact of EOL material recovery approaches on the LCCA of BIPV. • A methodology to calculate rationale subsidy is presented. • BIPV system performance has been evaluated after four years of operation. • BIPV system as a building envelope material in Norway is economically feasible. In dense urban areas, the use of building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) façades are becoming popular and they are bringing many advantageous along with the energy-saving features. However, at the same time, they raise tensions in capital investments and overall returns. "Solsmaragden" is one of such a commercial building, that is integrated with BIPV façade with the peak power of 127.5 kW and owned by Union eiendomsutvikling AS in Norway. In this paper, a lifecycle cost analysis (LCCA) of BIPV façade integrated to "Solsmaragden" is investigated based on on-field recorded data after four years of operation (2016–2019). While formulating LCCA, numerous benefits from system power generation, societal and environmental benefits, and financial gains due to three different end-of-life material recovery approaches were also considered. The result based on the field monitored performance showed that the net present value (NPV), discounted payback period, internal rate of return and levelised cost of energy of the system is equal to 478,934 NOK, 22 years, 6% and 1.28 NOK/kWh, respectively. It is observed that the BIPV system as a building envelope material for different orientations of the building skin could reimburse not only all the investment costs but also become a source of income for the buildings. The results also illustrated that the granted subsidy is substantially covering the societal and environmental benefits of this project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributions of building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems to the notion of nearly zero-energy cities in the capitals of the European Union member states (EU), Norway, and Switzerland. Moreover, an in-depth investigation of the barriers and challenges ahead of the widespread rollout of BIPV technology is undertaken. This study investigates the scalability of the nearly zero-energy concept using BIPV technology in moving from individual buildings to entire cities. This study provide a metric for architects and urban planners that can be used to assess how much of the energy consumed by buildings in Europe could be supplied by BIPV systems when installed as building envelope materials on the outer skins of buildings. The results illustrate that by 2030, when buildings in the EU become more energy-efficient and the efficiency of BIPV systems will have improved considerably, BIPV envelope materials will be a reasonable option for building skins and will help in achieving nearly zero-energy cities. This study reveals that in the EU, taking a building skin to building net surface area ratio of 0.78 and a building skin glazing ratio of 30%, buildings could cover their electricity consumption using BIPV systems by 2030. Eighteen challenges and barriers to the extensive rollout of BIPV systems are recognised, classified, and discussed in this study in detail. The challenges are categorised into five stages, namely the decision, design, implementation, operation and maintenance, and end of life challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business model of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) is developing expeditiously and BIPV will soon be recognised as a building envelope material for the entire building skins, among other alternatives such as brick, wood, stone, metals, etc. This paper investigates the effect of climate on the solar radiation components on building skins and BIPV materials in the northern hemisphere. The selected cities are Stavanger in Norway, Bern in Switzerland, Rome in Italy, and Dubai in the UAE. The study showed that for all the studied climates, the average incident radiation on the entire building skins is slightly more than the average incident radiation on the east or west facades, regardless of the orientations of the building facades. Furthermore, the correlation between solar radiation components and different BIPV technologies is discussed in this paper. It is also found that when it comes to the efficiency of different BIPV cells, the impact of the climate on some of the BIPV technologies (such as DSC and OSC) is much more significant than others (such as c-Si, mc-Si and CIGS). The evidence from this study suggests that in climates with higher diffuse radiation-or with more overcast days per year-the contribution of IR radiation decreases. Therefore, the efficiency of BIPV materials that their spectral responses are dependent on the IR radiation (like Si and CIGS) in such a climate would drop down meaningfully. On the other hand, the DSC and OSC solar cells could be a good option for cloudy climates since they have more stable performance, even in such a climate. Although, their efficiency compared to other BIPV materials such as Si-based BIPV solar cells is still significantly less thus far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]