Experimental and numerical study to optimize building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) roof structure

The study addresses the issue of heat dissipation in Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) roofs by proposing a novel PV module and establishing its testbed in Beijing, China, which is extended to more structures by the validated numerical model. The validation reveals MBD (mean bias difference)values of 10.24% for electricity production and 9.32% for temperature, accompanied by corresponding RMSD (root mean square difference) values of 23.97% and 10.46%, respectively. Taguchi method and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation were employed to design and simulate orthogonal schemes, optimizing BIPV roof structure for the first time by considering three factors: air gap thickness, PV panel spacing and heating power. The results indicate that the air gap thickness impacts most on PV panel temperature, followed by meteorological parameters and PV panel spacing. The optimal BIPV roof structure, featured an air gap of 68 mm and a PV panel spacing of 30 mm, exhibits a 25.35% reduction in PV panel temperature, an 8.78% increase in signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and a 2.49% growth in electricity production compared to the performance of the intermediate level scheme.