With a total ground
floor area over 22,000 km2, 40% of all building roofs and 15% of all facades in
EU 27 are suited for PV applications. This means that over 1,500 GWp of PV
could technically be installed in Europe which would generate annually about
1,400TWh, representing 40% of the total electricity demand by 2020.
The European
Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), the world’s largest photovoltaic
industry association together with Design-Build Solar, has organized today, 23
June, an event on Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) systems, at the
premises of the Ministry of housing in Madrid, in the framework of the “Solar
Decathlon”. The event will count more than 170 participants representing mainly
architects, installers, representatives from the renewable and construction
industries. The speakers, coming from all around Europe, will address the latest
technological and market trends within this sector as well as the economic and
regulatory frameworks in Spain and within the main European PV markets.
The integration of
photovoltaic energy in buildings provides an enormous development potential for
the PV industry as well as for the construction sector.
PV applications,
apart from contributing to the generation of electricity and improving the
passive energy behaviour of buildings, can replace conventional building
components and also provide different functions such as, water tightening,
weather protection, heat insulation, light modifications, etc.
“Spain has a unique
opportunity to develop the BIPV market, which in addition to leveraging the
decentralised nature of PV generation - energy generated by the citizen for the
citizen -, would enable the stimulation of tens of thousands of jobs firmly
anchored in the local economy, many of which in the construction industry”, said
Virgilio Navarro, EPIA’s Vice-president and CEO of ATERSA.
Currently in some
European countries the BIPV market is driven by specific support schemes,
designed in such a way that BIPV systems are rewarded with a higher tariff per
kWh generated than for Building Adapted PV (BAPV), where the PV modules are
installed on top of the existing building structure and do not provide any
additional function. This acknowledges the added effort and extra cost of
integrating PV as part of the building envelope. It is in particular the case in
France and Italy where BIPV already represents over one third of the annual
market. In other countries such as Germany and Spain, where support schemes are
not differentiated between both types of systems, BIPV only represents a very
marginal share of the market (<1%) representing mainly niche applications
where cost is not an issue.
“It is essential to
put in place favourable conditions across Europe that will support a wide
deployment of BIPV applications, which will have a major impact in the future
development of buildings in Europe. From 2012 onwards all Member States will
need to adopt the recently approved Energy Performance of Building directive
(EPBD) establishing that by 2020, all new building will need to be Nearly Zero
Energy Buildings. Solar Photovoltaics, will be a key technology enabling to
reach such an ambitious and crucial objective” added Adel El Gammal, Secretary
General of EPIA
EPIA released last
year its “SET For 2020 study”, showing that, provided specific boundary
conditions are met, PV installed capacity could reach up to 390 GWp in Europe by
2020, representing 12% of the electricity demand by then.
Wide adoption of
BIPV will allow seamless integration of high penetration of PV in urban
environments and will be key to achieving such ambitious target.