Building integrated concentrating solar systems - Solar Energy Sciences and Engineering Applications - page 545

Building integrated concentrating
solar systems

Daniel Chemisana 1 & Tapas K. Mallick 2
1 Polytechnic School, University of Lleida, 25001, Spain
2 College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter,
TR10 9EZ, United Kingdom

17.1 INTRODUCTIONTO BUILDING INTEGRATION OF
SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEMS

Building integration of solar systems can refer to the roof or the façade of a build-
ing. Building Integrated (BI) solutions are of great interest since they have several
advantages, such as aesthetically pleasing roof or facade integration, on-site energy
generation, higher electrical and/or thermal conversion efficiencies, and better use of
space. The term “building integration'' is generally classified in two ways: (i) Building
Integrated Solar Energy (BISE); and (ii) Building Applied Solar Energy (BASE). These
are defined as:

• BISE - when a solar energy system such as photovoltaics or solar thermal system is

directly integrated within the building as a replacement of building fenestrations;
for example, in a building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) system where PV is
the replacement for an existing building component or where no added building
components are required to integrate such PV systems within the new buildings.

• BASE - when a solar energy system such as PV and solar thermal collectors are

installed within the existing building or new building without any replacement of
building fenestrations; a good example of a building applied photovoltaics (BAPV)
system is PV integrated into a roof or a solar thermal collector installed into a roof
without any replacement of building materials.

In the literature and in the commercial sector there are several BI systems; however,
their architectural quality can be further improved. In this way, the use of solar tech-
nologies can be increased. Towards this direction, solar concentrating systems could
offer several advantages in comparison with non-concentrating ones. Nevertheless,
at present the use of concentrating technologies is limited, while most of the exist-
ing installations have devices of considerable size (for example, solar power towers,
parabolic-trough concentrators, parabolic-dish concentrators, large Fresnel concentra-
tors with 2-axis tracking). With regard to Concentrating Photovoltaics (CPV), more
than 30 companies are developing these systems; many are start-ups, while there is a
tendency for rapidly increasing production (Kurtz, 2009).
The use of concentrating systems requires the development of reliable systems from
the producers. On the other hand, utilization of a solar concentrator usually means
the necessity of tracking. An important issue is the tracker to be simple in order to