Enabling solar shading for power generation

Abstract

Controls of solar shadings are commonly rudimentary in focusing only on daylight control or overheating protection. But the interests in the transparent facade are collidingly multiobjective. Heat losses and gains, view to the exterior, daylight penetration and glare are a few of them. Adding photovoltaics to these objectives bears the potential to leverage the energy bill of a building to net positive. On the other side it brings a major conflict to the overall objective of indoor environment quality, as the best yield is created with blinds always in closed position. Solar shading systems with photovoltaic require a malleable, lightweight, robust and economical technology with good performance and durability. This work proposes an integrating control system for PV enabled venetian blinds to find an optimum between overall energy performance and user comfort.