Building Integrated Photovoltaics: Opportunities 2010

Innovative Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) products and solutions provide a strategy for the PV industry to compete in an increasingly crowded marketplace. By comparison with standard PV products, BIPV products provide two key benefits to customers: improved aesthetics and cost benefits when the total cost of a building is taken into consideration. From the manufacturers perspective they also add the ability to strongly distinguish their products in a marketplace in which solar panels are rapidly becoming commodities imported from low-cost manufacturing plants.

While early adopters of PV have remained undisturbed by the aesthetics of large panels being attached to roofs, it is likely that widespread adoption of PV will run into aesthetics barriers going forward. In order to address a larger market, PV manufacturers will find that PV needs to be more unobtrusive and there are now many options for doing so, including forming an entire roof out of BIPV tiles, interlacing BIPV slates or shingles with conventional ones, and incorporating PV into architectural glass. These kinds of approaches can make BIPV products more continuous and complementary to the conventional building skin materials and structures when compared to conventional solar panels mounted on a roof.

However, the business case for BIPV is not based entirely on the idea that it will make next generation solar panels prettier than the current generation. It also promises an improvement in the cost of building structures incorporating PV. This will be achieved by shifting the cost of photovoltaic systems from isolated panel, installation, and balance-of-system costs to more of a shared cost structure; one that is split between the power-generating system and the architectural system.

By incorporating PV modules into building materials—and forming dual- or multi-purpose products that serve building skin functions as well as power generating ones—BIPV products have the potential to reduce costs. Because conventional roofing products, cladding, etc. are not needed when the BIPV products serve those functions considerable savings are possible.

This report provides an opportunity analysis for BIPV over the next eight years, based on the aesthetic and cost benefits discussed above. We also examine how manufacturers in the PV space can leverage these benefits to distinguish themselves in the marketplace. These opportunities are explored in terms of the three major classes of BIPV products that NanoMarkets has identified and defined: rigid BIPV products, semitransparent BIPV products, and flexible BIPV products.

This report will be It is essential reading for both PV suppliers—whether currently supplying BIPV or not—as well as building materials suppliers, PV systems integrators, architects and firms in the construction industry.

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

E.1 The Economics of BIPV: BIPV< PV + Building Materials?
E.2 BIPV and Aesthetic Opportunities
E.2.1 BIPV, Aesthetics and the New Market for BIPV
E.2.2 Aesthetics, Architects and BIPV
E.3 Market Positioning and Distinguishing Features of BIPV
E.3.1 Current Status of BIPV Products
E.3.2 Opportunities for Crystalline Silicon PV Suppliers
E.3.3 Opportunities for Thin-Film PV Suppliers
E.4 BIPV's Impact on the Construction Industry
E.5 Opportunities for Building Materials Suppliers
E.6 Firms to Watch
E.6.1 Ascent Solar
E.6.2 Dow Chemical
E.6.3 Dyesol and Corus
E.6.4 Konarka and Solarmer
E.6.5 Odersun
E.6.6 Pythagoras Solar
E.6.7 SRS Energy
E.6.8 Sunovation
E.6.9 United Solar Ovonic
E.7 Summary of Eight-Year Forecasts of BIPV Markets

Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Background to this Report
1.1.1 BIPV: The New Value Proposition for Solar
1.1.2 Three Approaches to Building Integration: Rigid, Flexible, Transparent
1.2 Objectives and Scope of this Report
1.3 Methodology of this Report
1.4 Plan of this Report

Chapter Two: Rigid BIPV Tiles, Roofing, and Cladding. . . and Beyond
2.1 Introduction
2.1.1 The Market Dynamics of BIPV
2.2 Building Materials Markets: A Happy Coexistence with BIPV?
2.2.1 The Cost Factor
2.3 Crystalline Silicon PV: Approaches to Building Integration
2.3.1 BIPV Tiles and Slates and the Aesthetic Factor
2.3.2 Factors in Favor of Crystalline Silicon BIPV
2.3.3 Crystalline Silicon's Limitations in the BIPV Market
2.4 Thin-Film PV and the Rigid BIPV Market
2.4.1 Thin-Film PV's Value Propositions
2.4.2 Can Thin-Film PV Compete with Crystalline Silicon in Rigid Tiles?
2.4.3 Thin-Film PV Technologies as they Relate to BIPV
2.5 Key Points Made in this Chapter

Chapter Three: Transparent and Semi-Transparent BIPV: BIPV Glass
3.1 Introduction
3.1.1 Primary Markets for Transparent and Semi-Transparent BIPV
3.2 Architectural Glass: More than Just Windows
3.2.1 Cost Advantages of Transparent/Semi-Transparent BIPV
3.2.2 Applications of Transparent/Semi-Transparent BIPV
3.3 Semitransparent Approaches to Crystalline Silicon BIPV
3.3.1 Two Innovative c-Si BIPV Glass Products
3.3.2 Peekaboo Panels: The Aesthetics of Glass Encapsulated Crystalline Silicon PV Cells
3.3.3 The Cost of Glass vs. the Cost of the Crystalline Silicon PV Inside
3.3.4 Advantages and Disadvantages of Crystalline Silicon for Semitransparent BIPV
3.4 Thin-Film PV and the Semitransparent Panel
3.4.1 See-Through Becomes More Attractive
3.4.2 Glass Substrate Costs vs. Architectural Glass Costs
3.4.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Thin-Film PV for Semitransparent BIPV
3.5 Can BIPV Glass Become Truly Transparent?
3.5.1 OPV, BIPV and Transparency
3.5.2 OPV, DSC and Transparency
3.6 Key Points Made in this Chapter

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