Study on Improvement of Power Generation for a Window by Solar Radiation Reflected from the Low-E Coating of a Semi-Transparent Photovoltaic Module that is Equally Arranged Linear Double-Sided Solar Cells

TAISEI CORPORATION and KANEKA CORPORATION developed see-through PV (Photovoltaic module) for windows. This PV is the building-integrated photovoltaic module, which has high quality design for the purpose of installing exterior building windows. Especially it keeps the basic functions, which are views(daylighting), heat insulation and heat shielding, as well as solar generation. This research reports the results of outdoor verification and simulation implemented from the perspective of paying attention to the improvement of solar generation by reflecting the near infrared rays on the low-E coating. The main results are as follows. In the case of aperture ratio 50%, as a result of outdoor verification, it was confirmed that annual power generation by Low-E coating increased by approximately 9%. Also, as results of simulation, the ratio of incident radiation on the indoor side of liner solar cells was larger than that of traditional square solar cells. The results imply the liner shape is advantageous against square shape in the case of solar generation on the indoor side by the incident radiation reflected from the low-E coating. Furthermore, some periodic fluctuations on the PV using linear bifacial solar cells were confirmed through the simulation.