What is it about?
Think about your house... There is certainly a rooftop and at least one façade! Let's say it was so cheap to cover them with solar PV that you and your neighbours would come together to invest on a community solar project: everybody would have PV on their homes! And the best part is that, given the sun's movement, you would produce electricity to supply to your neighbour's toaster in the morning, and he would do the same to your favorite afternoon TV show. Is it evening? No problem: the community's storage system would cover your needs. And the electricity grid is thankful to you, as well as the environment, because a polluting power plant would not need to increase its power on purpose! This is the scenario that we explored in this article. The best integration of PV panels in two different building blocks were investigated to cover as much of the dwellings electricity needs as possible without stressing out the electricity grid: community solar is the best to both worlds... and it's cheaper for everybody!
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Why is it important?
The electricity demand is very high in urban areas, which has, to date, been mostly covered by fossil fuel combustion in utility scale power plants that contribute to global warming and depletion of natural resources. This is something that must change and solar PV is here to tackle the challenge! Solar resource abounds in most cities and PV is getting cheaper and cheaper. The collaboration between architects and engineers is also making its integration into building façades and rooftops more appealing than ever. Thus, it is important to make citizens and grid managers realise that mutual benefits can be achieved by combining people's electricity demand, production and storage.
Perspectives
Part of this study was conducted during a visit to the Sustainable Design Lab, in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Boston), made possible thanks to the MIT Portugal doctoral program, the SusCity project and a scholarship from the portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT). During those 4 months, I grew up not just academically but also as a person, met inspiring professors and colleagues, wandered through the many tunnels and infinite corridors and sang my lungs out with the MIT Gospel Choir. All of this culminated in what I consider the most important contribution of my PhD thesis: the solar potential of building façades, usually disregarded, is brought to a higher level, where their non-optimal inclination becomes an advantage to a greater purpose. I hope this work helps fostering the creation of solar communities worldwide!
Sara Freitas
Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon
I'd say that this is indeed Sara's most interesting paper, so far. It builds on the work we've been exploring together for the past 4 years, assessing the photovoltaic potential of the urban landscape, highlighting the relevant role of facades for off-peak electricity generation. It also shows that a cooperative behavior (and ownership) of residential PV systems can make it economic sensible without jeopardizing one other collective good: the grid. These results are very motivating, as it clearly shows that distributed PV on buildings is definitely a adequate pathway for the great energy transition we are living.
Miguel C Brito
Lisboa
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Minimizing storage needs for large scale photovoltaics in the urban environment, Solar Energy, January 2018, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.solener.2017.11.011.
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