Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV): emerging technologies, patents, and products

The current geopolitical scenario which mainly regards the furniture of fossil fuels, as gas and petroleum from Russia, and the effects of post-pandemic Covid-19 are highlighting the dependence of developed countries on non-renewable resources. The worldwide context is pushing governments to invest in energy transition strategies from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Building sector in Europe represents near 40% of the entire demand of energy, including renewable sources and fossil fuels, and the last ones represented approximatively the 80% of the entire demand. Photovoltaic (PV) systems are playing a significative role in energy transition; in the last 15 years PV technology has growth due to the technology advances and the decrease of manufacturing cost. In 2021, PV represented near the 40% of total renewable electricity production from new production assets, and the BIPV market ranged from 200MW to 400MW in Europe. This study focuses on innovative BIPV technologies, including third generation solar cells (DSSC, PSC) and new PV devices, as LSC devices. As part of the research of the advances in novelty technology and new development of BIPV products, a patent review was carried out and highlighted the registered products, with a significative patent’s number of windows devices, mostly integrate LSC devices. BIPV market is still a niche, components and products can be found to be integrated on building envelopes such as roofs, façades, or as external integrated devices, furthermore they can not only be used in new building, but also can be used in energy retrofit projects on existing buildings. 180 BIPV products from different countries around the world were found during this research and were classified according to their functionality in the building envelope, and according to the PV technology that they integrate.