Energy Evaluation of Photovoltaic Integration in Student Building with Different PV Technologies

In recent years, the development and implementation of building-integrated photovoltaic systems (BIPV) has been increasing in developing countries; however, in Latin America, it is a new technology without major contribution to the building generation market, and the architectural flexibility for the different types of colored solar cells makes it attractive due to the surrounding aesthetics of the building. Stopping the use of traditional materials in the envelope and generating energy for the building contributes to the need to produce energy at the point where it is consumed; however, the comparison of energy production with opaque and crystalline solar panels in the same building is not known. The energy generated by each of the photovoltaic systems was calculated using two computer program: the first program is Pvsite used for the integration of photovoltaic glass in buildings, and the second program is Pvsyst widely used for the design of photovoltaic systems with crystalline silicon panels. The results show that integrating photovoltaic glass in the front of the building can generate 6281 kWh/year; on the other hand, placing crystalline silicon panels on the terrace of the same building can generate 63,692 kWh/year.