The strategic siting and the roofing area requirements of building-integrated photovoltaic solar energy generators in urban areas in Brazil

Building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) generators are typically small and distributed solar power plants that occupy virtually no space because they are part of the building envelope, and they generate power at point of use. A more widespread use of grid-connected photovoltaics (PV) is hindered by a number of reasons which include the declining, but still high costs of the photogenerated kilowatt hour, and the lack of knowledge about the benefits of distributed generation with PV in the urban environment. When strategically sited, PV generators integrated to building façades and rooftops in urban areas at limited penetration levels can benefit local feeders with these distributed “negative loads”. A number of studies have been published, with learning curves demonstrating the cost-reduction potential of large-scale PV production, and in some markets the cost of PV electricity is approaching residential tariffs, the so-called grid parity. Due to the intermittent nature of the solar radiation resource, PV is considered non-despatchable power, but under some conditions, in sunny urban areas with electricity load curves dominated by air-conditioning loads, there is a high correlation between PV generation and feeder loads. In these situations, a considerable fraction of a given PV generator can be considered despatchable power. In this work we assess the potential of building-integrated, grid-connected PV generation in the state capital Florianópolis, in South Brazil. The deployment of six different commercially available PV technologies is compared with total roof area availability, solar generation profiles, and local feeder load curves for a selected number of urban areas in the city. Our results demonstrate the advantages of strategically siting PV generators in the urban environment.