Building with Solar Skin: An Exploration of Sustainable Building Materials

The push towards sustainability and clean energy is driving homeowners and businesses to explore renewable energy options, and one of the most promising solutions is Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV). Instead of traditional wall panels, which serve only one purpose – dividing indoor spaces from outdoor ones, BIPV enhances the environmental performance of a property by converting sunlight into electricity and reducing carbon emissions.

Today, BIPV solar panels come in a wide variety of designs, colours, and materials, and can be seamlessly integrated into the building's envelope. They can replace traditional wall panels, skylights, roofs, facades, and even windows or mimicking traditional bricks. Essentially, BIPV replaces non-productive facade cladding with a power-generating surface, or solar skin. This sustainable building material technology is gaining popularity as more corporations look towards greener practices and and to boost their Environmental Social Governance (ESG) while saving money on their energy bills. Traditional rooftop solar panels have succeeded in delivering grid parity, resulting in mass adoption across the globe, thanks largely to favourable economics. Furthermore, a growing number of solar panel manufacturers and suppliers, such?as Yingli Green Energy Australia Pty Ltd , have decades of field experience across multiple product lines installed in diverse geographic locations. Other such as Tesla and Volt Solar Tile are developing solar tiles to replace or seamlessly sit alongside standard roof tiles instead of being mounted on top of existing tiles or roof sheeting materials.

BIPV panels can be customized to match the building’s aesthetics, creating a sleek, modern appearance that complements the structure. These BIPV cladding materials now come in a variety of colours and patterns, offering near limitless aesthetic appeal and potential applications. Although there is a fine balance between managing aesthetics, power optimization, and generation, the cost savings on electricity can be modelled to support a favourable return on investment.

BIPV has multiple benefits. Firstly, it reduces energy consumption and utility bills for users, as the reliance on grid-generated power decreases noticeably when BIPV is installed. Furthermore, using BIPV as a replacement for traditional wall panels also reduces carbon emissions, improves the building's embodied energy, and contributes to a more sustainable environment. Moreover, BIPV technology empowers homes and businesses to be self-sufficient, as the building can generate its own electric energy from renewable sources. A building constructed with a solar skin becomes a prosumer of energy – it both produces and consumes renewable energy. Additionally, with the adoption of energy storage and Virtual Power Plants (VPP), any surplus energy can be stored, shared among other buildings, or sold to the grid when network demand and cost are high.

The initial investment in BIPV technology may be higher than traditional solar panels; however, BIPV offers long-term cost savings and is a game-changer in the construction industry, replacing traditional wall panels to enhance the overall appeal of buildings while promoting clean energy generation. It not only satisfies energy needs but also saves costs while facilitating greener practices. The use of BIPV solar cells delivers numerous advantages for designers, engineers, architects, and building owners, and with the continued development and advancement in the technology, there will be multiple applications for BIPV in the future.