Mina Al-Hosn 1394 BIPV

The Challenge

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• PV panels must integrate the architecture's beauty • Optimize the reception of solar energy• PV must fit the thermal insulation of the facades & be well

cooled to prevent losses• Heavy duty hardware is used: PV panels, cables & connectors

as well as inverters must be heavy duty to be alive during >25 Y

• Optimize the string distribution to minimize shadowing effect

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Challenge of the design:

At the beginning of this project, in 2008 until the decision in 2011, the only PV for architecture was the “Thin Film”

• Thin Film best efficiency was 11.3% (CIGS), now we find 13.5%• Another new solution developed in the EPFL and manufactured

in the UAE which is a selective filter reflecting only one color from the solar spectrum! We get an efficiency reduction not more than 10%. So using this technology we can use the highest efficiency in panels without important reduction due to this filter!

• We used dummy panels which are exactly the same as the normal (to prevent color change within the next 25 years) but with special cut!

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Architectural BIPV:

1. Facades: East, South, West or North ? • In Beirut East, South or West have approx. the same capture

about 1’000 Kwh/sqm/a• We used the East & West since the south had louvers to

protect from solar rays in summer & help in heating in winter!

2. Emplacement must prevent the most shadowed regions, in our case the most important shadow is from BankMed Bldg.

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Optimizing solar reception:

• Thermal insulation & panel cooling are performed as follows1. Air gap behind the panel permitting air circulation to

perform natural cooling!2. Glass-wool behind this air gap to perform thermal

insulation

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Insulation & panel cooling:

Glass-wool InsulationAir gap

PV Panel

• Sustainability can not be performed through unknown or unapproved low cost materials!

• We used Q-Cells German panels, MC Swiss connectors & cables and KACO German inverters, which are all approved and tested in Switzerland and Europe!

• No investment economy is justified for a lifetime of 25years!

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Sustainable materials:

• Ideally is to get the maximum of MPPT (Max. Power Point Tracker) for each panel!

• We have about 500 panels of 85Wp each• We used 33 inverters (with transformer) of about 2KW each• String distribution was performed to get one string for each

group of panels having the same direct sun light (at the same time): our strings are for max. 6 panels, due to the high voltage of the Thin Film technologies!

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String distribution:

1. Instead of using classical passive cladding materials, we are ready to advice you in BIPV solutions

2. You may invest about 50% to 100% more but certainly you get more than this investment within few years!

3. To be known that the oil price is going up 11.5%/year in the last 18 years!

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Conclusions:

Thank you

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