Photovoltaic-Enabled Aesthetic Cladding for Smart Buildings

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In order to meet the energy demand of urban areas with high population densities, greener solutions that efficiently use the available resources are needed. The vertical walls of tall buildings have vast surface areas that can potentially become significant energy harvesting platforms. While the vertical walls are somewhat less optimal for solar panel implementation than roof-tops, they offer a lot larger surface area. At the same time, unlike the roof-tops, the vertical walls must have a pleasing appearance with higher aesthetic standards because of their visibility. The primary goal of this research partnership between the University of Waterloo and GCAT Inc., a major building cladding manufacturer, is to develop aesthetically inspired photovoltaic (PV)-enabled building cladding for smart buildings. The research will develop scalable processes for the embedment of high performance solar cells in building claddings with control over the aesthetics of the final product while also maximizing the PV output. Exploiting various physical phenomena of thin films and nanostructures, techniques will be developed to modify glass sheets used in standard solar panels, enhance optical thin films, and incorporate nanoscale plasmonic structures, while also maintaining maximum possible transparency. The color and texture perceived by the viewer will be a key aesthetic parameter that needs to be controlled in these building-integrated PV devices. Realization of certain colours, especially lighter ones where a broader wavelength range of photons get reflected, will inevitably come with some penalty on the energy output of the PV panel. A key aspect of this project is the development of processes that lead to an optimized photovoltaic-architectural performance. Prototypes of PV-incorporated cladding will be demonstrated following the different techniques and evaluated for architectural compatibility. This research, coupled with the rapidly declining PV prices seen in recent times, will contribute strongly to reduce the carbon footprint particularly in urban areas, and opens up commercially viable opportunities for the building industry.