Optimum Arrangement of Photovoltaic Panels for BIPV Application

Building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) has the potential to become a major source of renewable energy in the urban area. This paper presents monitoring and calculated results of the ratio of beam radiation on the surfaces of the collectors for BIPV applications. The solar collectors were installed as shading devices around a building from each face, south, west north, and east. The slope angles in this case study are beta = 90 degrees and beta = 10 degrees with the hour angle of omega = -60 degrees at 8:00 am. The system is installed on an educational building at the center of Kuala Lumpur. Spreadsheet is used in the simulation of the data. The results presented that the optimum value of the ratio of beam radiation is in December and the solar collector toward east. The ratio of the beam radiation when the collector constructed vertical beta = 90 degrees, the ratio is small, R(b) = 0.1518 to 1.81922. The study also found that in some of the direction resulted show no ratio due to negative value. In most direction when beta = 10 degrees the value of ratio is within acceptable range of R(b) = 0.81922 to 1.31121.