A report by market analysts NanoMarkets predicts that the market for building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) glass will surge in the coming 5 years—growing from $823 million in 2014 to 2.7 billion in 2019.
NanoMarkets’ report takes a detailed look at the BIPV glass market out to 2021, with breakdowns that separately examine different countries, regions and building types. The latter includes zero-energy, prestige, commercial & government building properties. The paper also looks at some of the strategies that leading glass and solar PV companies are using to expand their share of the growing market.
BIPV is often vaunted as the futuristic and elegant cousin of the much more common rooftop solar panel. Whereas ordinary solar modules can easily be retrofitted and are suitable for a wide range of applications, BIPV solar installations are usually planned into building & renovation projects from their inception.
As of now, the substrates used in BIPV are often less efficient at producing electricity from sunlight and are frequently more expensive to produce than stock-standard panels. This tends to make BIPV only a worthwhile option only for projects where energy efficiency is a key consideration for a building’s design from the outset, and where the BIPV components can replace other building materials such as windows, facades or roof tiles. In this respect, BIPV holds enormous promise for the field of carbon-neutral buildings.
© 2014 Solar Choice Pty Ltd
