Do semi-transparent photovoltaic curtain walls improve thermal performance?

Semi-transparent photovoltaic (STPV) curtain walls play a crucial role in building decarbonization. Nonetheless, Previous studies mainly concentrated on improving the electrical, daylighting and thermal performance of STPV curtain walls separately, ignoring the interdependencies among these performance factors.

Why do PV curtain walls have a poor visual effect?

Traditional PV curtain wall with standard square-shaped solar cells usually results in a poor visual effect due to the obvious contrast between the opaque silicon solar cells and the transparent glass .

What is a PV curtain wall?

The PV curtain wall usually consists of a sheet of laminated glass embedded with solar cells, a cavity filled with air or argon, and a piece of glass substrate .

Does STPV curtain wall use more energy?

Sun et al. found that STPV curtain wall with 67 % PV coverage ratio exhibited higher energy consumption compared to that with a PV coverage ratio of 33 %. Hence, it is necessary to consider the conflict between cooling and heating demands when designing the STPV curtain wall.

Do partitioned STPV curtain walls exceed building net-energy consumption?

It is seen that all partitioned STPV curtain walls exhibit positive values of building net-energy consumption in Beijing, which indicates that the annual PV electricity generation of the partitioned STPV curtain wall exceeds the annual building energy consumption.

Can a semi-transparent PV window reduce cooling load?

To address this issue, Peng et al. proposed a novel semi-transparent PV (STPV) window in which PV cells were arranged in thin stripes through the laser scribing process. In response to this design, researchers conducted extensive studies and found that the STPV curtain wall can reduce cooling load in hot climates [11, 12].