Progress on BIPV temperature control using thermal diodes and integrated heat storage

Incidental heat gains in Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) can significantly reduce electrical yields, accelerate panel aging, and contribute towards unwanted solar thermal gains within occupied spaces inside the building. Reducing temperature peaks by integrating local heat storage can increase electrical efficiency and prevent premature aging. Overall efficiency can be further improved by utilising surplus thermal energy to satisfy local heat demands.
This paper describes the HyPVT concept (Figure 1) which combines BIPV with a Planar Liquid-Vapour Thermal Diode (PLVTD) and an Integrated Collector-Storage Solar Water Heater (ICSSWH) approach and to achieve passive PV temperature control and act as a low temperature thermal source for a heat pump.
An overview of recent work at Ulster University is presented, describing realisation and testing of HyPVT prototypes to quantify the benefits of the concept relative to conventional BIPV systems. This paper builds upon the foundations established in our previous work BIPV/T facades – A new opportunity for integrated collector-storage solar water heaters? (Pugsley et al., published in Solar Energy 206 (2020) 751-769 and 207 (2020) 317-335) and provides an update on recent progress through the Community Energy from Solar Envelope Architecture (CE-SEA) project.