Assessment of energy production from photovoltaic modules integrated in typical shading devices

Abstract This paper presents the results of three methods that measure energy produced by photovoltaic (PV) modules integrated in various external opaque shadings of typical office buildings in Greece. These methods are related to the comparison of energy production results by three different models: a simple energy computer simulation model that uses the theoretical average PV efficiency of 12%, a more complete computer simulation model using detailed equations (using either theoretical or real PV Market products), and real PV installations. The paper addresses the problem of designing efficient shading devices for buildings. Each examined method refers to a different design stage according to the level of information that is available to the designer. The results showed that the simple simulation and the more elaborated models have similar performance for most of the shading devices, apart from those with a complicated geometry. Moreover, the complete model that uses parameters of PV modules already available on the market can provide results of energy production even for complicated geometries. It is also concluded that the real PV installations produce results very close to the theoretical average PV efficiency of 12%.