Detailed Balance Analysis of Photovoltaic Windows

Urban areas currently account for 67-76% of global final energy consumption. With urban living expected to increase from roughly half of the world's population to 70% by the middle of this century, energy generation and efficiency in the urban built environment is critical to a sustainable energy future. Though building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) have been in development for many decades, the rapid decrease in the cost of PV in the past decade makes BIPV an economically tractable direction for on-site building energy generation in the near future.