Kinetic building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) fins can simultaneously influence solar gains, daylight availability, glare risk, and on-site generation. However, their net benefit depends on how façade optics, thermal loads, lighting demand, and PV yield interact. This paper establishes a reproducible simulation workflow in EnergyPlus (DOE medium office prototype) to quantify these coupled tradeoffs for a semi-transparent PV insulating glass unit and rotatable exterior fin states. We first compare the baseline glazing against the BIPV glazing at the whole-building level. The BIPV case reduces total annual end-use electricity by 7.9% (from 521,763 kWh to 483,595 kWh) while producing 35,027 kWh of PV electricity. Cooling electricity decreases by 6.7% (-6,359 kWh), while heating increases by 8.6% (+2,406 kWh) and interior lighting increases by 1.4% (+1,437 kWh), reflecting the reduced visible transmittance of the PV glazing. Daylight and glare at a representative perimeter reference point show lower illuminance (average 3,400 lux to 2,200 lux) and a modest reduction in average glare index (25 to 22). We then evaluate three static fin tilt angles (0°/45°/90°) to illustrate energy-comfort-PV tradeoffs: 45° yields the highest PV generation (45,033 kWh) and the lowest cooling energy (95,059 kWh), while other angles shift the balance between heating, cooling, lighting, and glare exceedance time. These baseline results motivate the need for predictive fin control and provide decision-ready performance sensitivities for future occupant-centric kinetic BIPV operation.
Yang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.