Building-integrated photovoltaic technologies have considerable potential for the generation of onsite renewable energy. Despite this, their market penetration is in a relatively embryonic phase with respect to grounded or building-attached solutions, and they have limited commercial application. Their integration into building façades may represent a key asset in meeting the net-zero emissions by 2050 scenario, in particular for high-rise buildings in which the roof-to-façade ratio is unfavorable for the fulfillment of the energy load using only roof photovoltaic technology. Moreover, different façade orientations extend the production time throughout the day, flattening the power generation curve. Because of the present interest in BIPV systems, several researchers have conducted high-quality reviews focused on specific designs. In this work, various photovoltaic technologies and methods used to manufacture façade BIPV devices are reviewed with the aim of presenting researchers with the recent technological advancements and providing an overview of photovoltaic systems designed for different purposes and their applications rather than a detailed analysis of a specific technology. Lastly, future prospects and the limitations of building-integrated photovoltaic devices are presented.

The need of clean energy is constantly increasing, and Building Integrated PhotoVoltaic (BIPV) technologies represent valuable assets to expand even further the photovoltaic market. Thanks to BIPVs. a new concept of local electric microgrid will probably emerge as this kind of technology can turn buildings from energy wells to energy sources. Luminescent Solar Concentrator (LSC) panels are perfect to achieve this goal, indeed, contrary to standard flat PhotoVoltaic (PV) modules, they can be exploited in transparent or semi-transparent building façades. Thus, the purpose of this work was the optimization of the performance of LSC panels for BIPV applications. Being an application-oriented study, we paid particular attention to the scalability of the assembling process and the use of LSC slabs functionalized only with widely available organic commercial dyes and high-performance commercial silicon solar cells. The electrical and optical performance of the LSC panels were firstly simulated and then, once the most promising configurations were identified, the respective prototypes were assembled to compare the simulation results with the experimental measurements. These analyses were performed both under uniform illumination and in some relevant shading configurations typical for BIPV devices in operating conditions. The obtained results show that LSC panels that employ PV cells coupled with reflective films can yield a higher efficiency than a traditional system with cells placed along four sides.

The growing importance of sustainability and passive house design requires the reconsideration of integrating the solar PV modules in both buildings and architectural design processes. The architectural integration of photovoltaic systems is one of the fundamental themes of contemporary architecture to optimize efficiency while taking into account the proportions, morphology and aesthetics of the project. The direct conversion of solar energy into electrical energy using photovoltaic systems appears to be a consolidated technology of exploitation of renewable energy sources. In addition to the availability of the source, its characteristics are its reliability and that it needs low maintenance. In this paper, we present, as a case study, a solar canopy specially designed for the Liv-lib’ project at Solar Decathlon Europe 2014. Canopy's shape was designed to maximize the performance of the solar conversion by integrating in series two innovative solar technologies, Luminescent Solar Concentrators (LSC) and Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) solar cells. LSC are constituted by slabs of transparent materials (PMMA) doped with a fluorescent dye that captures a fraction of the sun rays passing through the panel. The dye molecules then re-emit light at a longer wavelength inside the slab which, due to the total internal reflection, traps and guides this light toward its edges. Strips of solar cells are optically coupled to the edges and convert into electric energy the light gathered by the slab. Liv-lib’ is a self-sustainable passive house run by University Paris-Est, thanks to the joint work of staff and students from “ENSA Paris-Malaquais”, “ESTP”, “ESIEE Paris”, and “Chimie ParisTech” with academic and industrial partners, among which, for the LSC, the Department of Physics and Earth Sciences of the University of Ferrara

The increasing trend towards decarbonization requires the reduction of the environmental impact of the building sector that currently accounts for approximately 40% of the total CO₂ emissions of European countries. Even though Luminescent Solar Concentrator (LSC) panels could be a very promising technology to be installed in urban environments, there is still little implementation of LSC panels in building façades. Here, the realization of a Ventilated Façade (VF) integrating an LSC device as an external pane is presented and a preliminary numerical and experimental investigation is used to evaluate the interaction between the different structure components. Thanks to the realization of a dedicated mock-up finite element method, models are calibrated and validated against experimental measurements, showing a good correspondence between simulated and measured data. Moreover, the electrical characterization of the LSC panel confirms that large area devices can be used as an external skin of VF, reporting a photovoltaic efficiency of 0.5%. The system’s thermal and optical properties (estimated thanks to the software COMSOL Multiphysics) encourage the continuation of the research by considering different technologies for the VF internal skin, by scaling up the case study, and by running the simulation of an entire building considering winter and summer energy demands.