Modelling of active solar building envelopes for cost-effective evaluation

• Main Authors: Christoph Maurer, Tilmann E. Kuhn
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: TU Delft Open 2017-05-01
• Series: Journal of Facade Design and Engineering
• Subjects: solar building envelopes, building-integrated solar thermal (BIST), building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), building-integrated solar systems (BISS), solar architecture
• Online Access: https://journals.open.tudelft.nl/index.php/jfde/article/view/1740

Active building envelopes have provided cost reductions of 40% compared to the separate installation of solar collectors on a building envelope. However, solar building envelopes are more complex than conventional building envelopes due to their additional solar function. Firstly, the paper explains this complexity before describing methods of handling it. The focus of the simulation models is to obtain high levels of accuracy at low costs. From the development of innovative solar envelopes to the general planning and construction of solar architecture, this paper provides seven recommendations to optimize the cost-benefit ratio of simulations of active building envelopes.