New tech to help incorporate “built-in” solar from roof tiles, windows and cladding

Solar roof tiles, along with windows and even cladding that can generate solar power, are exciting new building materials, but figuring out how to integrate these – and cost them – at the design phase of a building is difficult. 

To fix this problem, RMIT University has created software that helps architects and engineers incorporate, source and cost “building-integrated photovoltaics”, or BIPV, into the earliest stages of design.

RMIT says the software, which it co-funded with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), is the first of its kind to be designed using Australian data. 

The BIPV Enabler tool uses data from the products themselves, as well as from building code regulations, financial options, technical factors and construction data to create 3D models and lifecycle simulations tailored to a building’s planned location. 

It can integrate maps, solar visualisations, hourly weather data, pricing information for materials, and feed-in tariffs. 

The tool will help architects and engineers choose the right materials to suit the design, says project lead associate professor Rebecca Yang from RMIT’s Solar Energy Application Group.

“We’re making integrated-solar a more attractive option to developers, slicing the time it would normally take to research and implement incognito solar devices,” she says.

“This isn’t just for new buildings either. Those looking to retrofit integrated solar into existing buildings will benefit too. We hope to see more buildings capable of generating solar electricity, while maintaining good design standards – a win for the planet and aesthetics,” Yang said. 

Last year, Australia’s first office tower to be completely clad in a “skin” of solar panels was approved to be built at 550 Spencer Street in West Melbourne, using a German design that uses thin-film PV modules that funnels the electricity generated into the building’s main power supply.

Construction on the structure of that building finished about three months ago, but there is no opening date as yet for the tower. 

RMIT architecture lecturer Nic Bao says the software will help architects source materials from Australian suppliers – currently a tricky part of the job given the disparate options on the market today. 

Australians now have more options than just rooftop solar

Rooftop solar is the dominant form of solar generator for buildings today. But in Australia companies are also creating world-leading non-rooftop solar products. 

ClearVue makes solar windows, and a recent study found a greenhouse covered in its solar glazing is as effective through winter as a 6.6 kW array on a Perth rooftop. 

Alongside cladding and windows, solar tiles are making their way into the Australian building economy as well. 

RMIT’s software may be the first of its kind for this application, but computer programs to make Australia’s building stock greener are proliferating. 

CSIRO’s Data Clearing House platform is signing up 200 buildings to test its premise of turning them into smart buildings that can offer flexible demand and behave like batteries, by synchronising the power draw from the likes of air conditioners and hot and cold water systems to when renewables are peaking in the grid.

“Sick buildings”, as RenewEconomy reported in 2013, are a problem the industry has been aware of for more than a decade, as people working in the built environment began to understand their contribution to climate change and thinking about how they could contribute to more sustainable buildings. 

The Property Council of Australia and the Green Building Council have this year already called for additions to building codes that force the country’s building stock towards a net zero future, but these kinds of exhortations have been made for some time.

For example, the  Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council in 2016 said the building sector could deliver more than one quarter of Australia’s emissions reduction target by 2030, as well as $20 billion in energy savings, given the right policy incentives.