Abstract
The application of renewable energy has been an integral part of the sustainability drive in the building sector and solar photovoltaic (PV) is one of the most effective technologies in this respect. The present study aims to investigate the prospects of solar PV in residential buildings in the hot–humid climatic conditions. The study discusses the utilization of building roofs for the application of PV in terms of potential hurdles and utilization factor (UF). Technical performance of PV systems has also been investigated in terms of power output as well as the energy saved as a result of the shading impact of panels for two types of residential units, apartments and villas. Investigation of 70 sample residential buildings reveals the average UF of 0.21 and 0.28 for apartments and villas, respectively. For the case study of apartment and villa residential units, roof UF has been found to be 13% and 15% with a respective PV output of 6079 kWh/year and 6162 kWh/year. Potential PV output at the city level has also been estimated. A sensitivity analysis has been conducted to evaluate the impact of various cost and design parameters on the viability of PV systems.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 10060 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-19 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Sustainability |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 23 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Dec 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
- Buildings
- Environment
- PV
- Renewable energy
- Solar energy
- Sustainability
- Techno-economics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Computer Science (miscellaneous)
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology
- Hardware and Architecture
- Computer Networks and Communications
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
