Design and intelligent control of building integrated photovoltaic system

The concept of building an integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) system attracts increasing attention due to its promising performance in energy-saving. However, the efficiency of the BIPV system may rapidly deteriorate when the photovoltaic (PV) array is partially shaded by clouds and shadows of the surrounding buildings. This paper presents a novel configuration of a large-scale BIPV system, and the intelligent maximum power point tracking approach is also studied. First, the PV panels installed on each side of the building are designed as the BIPV units (BIPV-Us) with different sizes, and the size of each BIPV-U is determined by the location and surroundings of the target building. Second, the numerical model of the BIPV system is established as an optimization problem, and an intelligent algorithm in our previous work, namely, decentralizing and coevolving differential evolution, is employed to solve this problem. Finally, the proposed BIPV system is tested by simulation experiments. According to the experimental results, the proposed BIPV system and its intelligent control approach can achieve promising performance under complex urban conditions. Published by AIP Publishing.