Hernando Miranda, president of Soltierra
Articles
Optimizing Photovoltaic Design, Part II
The Audubon Center at Debs Park is a unique off-the-grid building. The center’s systems are 100% solar, meaning that space heating, space cooling, hot water and electric power are all rooftop solar systems. This article discusses how the PV design could have been optimized if the building design was flexible enough to allow the PV to inform part of the building shape.
Optimizing Photovoltaic Design
Typical approaches to photovoltaic (PV) design often result in less-than-optimum energy production. This results in larger PV arrays than might be required—meaning greater cost to a building owner. Large arrays use greater amounts of material, which means increased fabrication efforts, higher transportation costs and more installation efforts. The challenge is to get by with fewer materials by designing a building and PV system in harmony with each other.