Building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) facade systems are advanced wall assemblies that generate electricity while altering the building’s cooling and heating loads due to generated heat from solar absorption. The generated heat is distributed with a bias toward the exterior or interior environment, depending on the wall assembly and ambient conditions. This study quantifies these effects using representative thermal load parameters for a cold-climate region. A parametric computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted on a low-rise archetype with a continuous BIPV facade through naturally ventilated and non-ventilated configurations. The ventilated windward configuration reduced the base cooling load by 7.00% and generated 4.67% more electricity than the non-ventilated leeward configuration at a wind velocity of 4 m/s. In contrast, the non-ventilated leeward case increased the base cooling load by 77.13%, and offset by 3.78% of the generated electricity, resulting in 8.07% lower electricity production than the optimal ventilated windward case. The non-ventilated configuration under both wind directions exhibits higher overall energy performance during the heating season, as the greater reduction in heating loads outweighs the loss in electrical power generation. Therefore, the system presents potential passive heating benefits that can be evaluated based on the heating system used in the study building. The resulting dataset of equivalent thermal transmittance and solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) values supports application to similar configurations and microclimates.
Hameed et al. (Mon,) studied this question.