Papers by Francesco Frontini
The Federal Office of Culture, in collaboration with the Canton of Geneva and the City of Carouge... more The Federal Office of Culture, in collaboration with the Canton of Geneva and the City of Carouge, decided in 2015 to conduct a study to establish a global solar planning model. The study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team, led by Professor Reto Camponovo of Hepia and Anita Frei, urban architect. It started in the spring of 2016 and ended in the spring of 2018. The aim of such planning is to encourage a municipality to produce solar energy on its territory while preserving the built sites that form its identity and the building culture that makes its quality. By encouraging collective approaches, which are cheaper and more efficient in terms of potential, and by favoring a territorial approach, global solar planning makes it possible to overcome individual initiatives, the multiplication of which is liable to damage built sites.The City of Carouge was chosen to lead this study and develop a methodology applicable to other municipalities in Switzerland, because it has charact...
Science Technology and Engineering, 2007
The present need to, dramatically, increase the renewable part of our energy supply is now pushin... more The present need to, dramatically, increase the renewable part of our energy supply is now pushing to maximize the Photovoltaics (PV) use on the building skins, making architectural and building integration a key issue. This will have an impact both in the building’s design by reducing the energy need by the building itself, and in the diffusion of renewable energies on site (near-by), which will produce the remaining part of energy if it is needed. PV will be gaining more and more relevance in the NZEBs design, thanks to its features and potentialities. “BIPV” is for technicians a well-known acronym to indicate PV module used in/on building when PV modules replace part of the traditional building elements of the envelope. Despite the discussion has been treated in several international projects and research programmes, settled up to find a common definition of BIPV and to help the PV manufactures to produce new innovative module suitable for their use in buildings, PV module are still not used on large scale in building and often are not considered at all by architect and designer as a further option in their projects. The paper tries to underline what are the main causes of this slowdown in the use of PV as building component. Possible solution are also presented especially in order to gives the main stakeholder affordable information of PV module as for a common building component. This paper will start from a review of current definitions used in the field of the use of PV in buildings, and will identify needs for further research. The starting point will be the experience of the authors in several international research project, in the International Energy Agency (SHC Task 41 Solar Energy and Architecture; SHC-ECBCS Task 40-Annex 52 Towards Net Zero Energy Solar Buildings) and, in particular, the participation in the EU 7th FP project “Construct PV”.
Energy Science & Engineering
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
2nd International Conference on Renewable Energy Sources & Energy efficiency, 2009
Today photovoltaics (PV) has become one of the most cost-effective forms of electricity productio... more Today photovoltaics (PV) has become one of the most cost-effective forms of electricity production globally and in some regions is already the most competitive unsubsidised form of electricity. Despite positive cost and growing developments, European PV manufacturers are facing a decline in production due to competition from third countries. This decrease in the competitiveness of European PV actors is due to several factors, including a greater fragmentation of the value chain compared to competing actors. Chinese manufacturers have in particular been able to achieve synergies, economies of scale and information sharing throughout the value chain. SUPER PV is a collaborative European-funded project initiated in 2018 by 26 partners in reaction to this trend. Together, they target a significant LCOE reduction (26%-37%) for European-made PV by adopting a hybrid approach combining technological innovations and data management methods.
In this paper, the authors report on a jointly conducted analysis of the current status of the BI... more In this paper, the authors report on a jointly conducted analysis of the current status of the BIPV market by giving a comprehensive overview on the available products, the current trends of technological innovation, the application ranges and a survey on the price levels. For this purpose a market survey was conducted among the various stakeholders in the BIPV sector, including manufacturers, installers and BIPV product suppliers. The survey focused on different application areas: roof and façade systems including both crystalline and thin film technologies. The market survey was conducted for the European market, with emphasis on The Netherlands and Switzerland. The most frequent products investigated were PV tiles and full roof solution (mainly for residential roofs). Although crystalline silicon technology was most commonly used, thin film technologies gained considerable share as well as façade systems. The data from the price survey showed that BIPV systems for the building sk...
The given state-of-the-art review of BIPV design and management tools presents recent development... more The given state-of-the-art review of BIPV design and management tools presents recent developments in BIPV modelling concerning design and management processes with different levels of detail, targeting various stakeholders and their requirements in the BIPV value chain in relation to geophysical, technical, economic and environmental aspects. It goes beyond focusing only on PV modelling and gives an overview of the BIPV tools from the perspective of BIPV integration in design and multi-performance modelling and planning. The report examines features and functions, as well as potential development and limitations of currently available tools used in BIPV planning process, including tools specifically designed for BIPV and PV tools with capacity to simulate certain BIPV cases. Moreover, report provides information on limitation and reliability of these tools in different settings and for different BIPV categories, indicating pathways and tools selection that would provide the highest confidence and fidelity of results as well as positive user experience throughout the process. The report streamlines workflows according to the type and complexity of BIPV integration and offers pathways and tools suitable for required case. The report included 15 domains of BIPV planning such as geophysical, technical, economic and environment which affect successful BIPV integration. 27 software, 9 online tools and 4 apps were compared against the aforementioned domains. The findings of this review showed none of the examined software and apps can cater to all the factors pertaining to PV project design and management. Results have shown that majority of tools used in BIPV modelling come from PV domain and consequently still lack important features regarding BIPV integration, especially for vertical or externally mounted BIPV. Therefore, this study propose a decision support system which will address stakeholders practical difficulties by providing the main features: (1) a local
In 2007, the “passive house” concepts were applied at the construction of 16 houses in Selvino (B... more In 2007, the “passive house” concepts were applied at the construction of 16 houses in Selvino (Bergamo). This small mountain village was designed with the aim of minimizing the energy consumption. Using a holistic design process characterized by the integration of architectural and technological choices the ambitious target of 30 kWh/m2a was reached. Passive strategies are used to keep the indoor comfort: high insulating layers (a combination of traditional and thin insulation layers); high winter solar gains; small window area in the north façade with high performance; large opening and conservatory space in the south façade. Mechanical systems and PV panels were designed to exploit as much as possible the renewable energy sources, thus limiting CO2 emissions. In particular, the mechanical system is composed as following: solar photovoltaic panels installed on the south-facing roof; electrical radiant floor heating system; high efficiency electric boiler; mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. This paper wants to show a practical example of a holistic design process integrating architectural, technological and energetic issues; the result is a low-energy building with a contemporary architecture that suite perfectly to the specific context.
The enhancement of the fire safety of buildings with PV modules installed/integrated on roofs or ... more The enhancement of the fire safety of buildings with PV modules installed/integrated on roofs or facades is a topic that still concerns the PV industry and research communities due to the fact that the presence of PV modules can facilitate a fast spread of the flames. Considering that PV modules are spreading all over the world on buildings, there is the need to guarantee higher safety requirements both in order to avoid economic losses and to protect people who can be involved in case of fire. This is involving, on one hand, a continuous improvement of the international and national regulation frameworks and, on the other hand, new research activities for the evaluation of the PV module behavior in case of exposure to an external fire that are aimed at considering real conditions for PV installations in order to go beyond the actual framework and further improve the fire safety aspects. Therefore, this work aims at presenting a clear understanding of the existing regulation framewo...
Verschiedene Bauten der solaren Architektur haben in der jungsten Vergangenheit gezeigt, was heut... more Verschiedene Bauten der solaren Architektur haben in der jungsten Vergangenheit gezeigt, was heute durch die Integration von solaren Komponenten in Gebauden moglich ist. Die Integration solarer Energie ist aus okologischer, energetischer und raumplanerischer Sicht sinnvoll und es ist auch moglich solare Architektur gestalterisch zu integrieren. Fur Eigentumer, Investoren und Architekten stellt sich grundsatzlich die Frage, wie hoch und wie rentabel die fur die solare Energieproduktion notwendigen Zusatzinvestitionen sind. Die vorliegende Handlungsanweisung zur energetischen und wirtschaftlichen Bewertung integrierter Solaranlagen zeigt anhand effektiv realisierter Projekte eine Spannbreite von verschiedenen Auspragungen der Integration. Die integrale Planung der integrierten Solaranlage, abgestimmt auf Gebaudehulle und Gebaudetechnik, fuhrt zu attraktiven Renditen und steigert die Akzeptanz fur die breite Anwendung integrierte Solaranlagen als neue und innovative Technologie.
The influence of different facade integrated photovoltaic solutions on the building energy consum... more The influence of different facade integrated photovoltaic solutions on the building energy consumption is not easy to assess under real operating conditions. Thermal aspects, inside temperatures or luminance level that can be expected using building integrated PV (BIPV) modules are not well-known. The BIPV Env-lab “BIPV Controlled Environment Test Laboratory” project aims to analyze the whole set of issues that influence the global energy consumption in a building that use BIPV modules. Issues to be analyzed are comfort aspect (thermal and lighting aspects), energy consumption, electricity production, electrical behavior of PV modules and PV systems for vertical integration. Integrated photovoltaic components and the use of renewable energy is already a standard for reducing power consumption, but would also be important to know the possible contribution on the comfort and health of building occupants. This work presents the specific design of the test facility and the methodology e...
When installing Photovoltaic on Building, the mounting system significantly affects the heat-exch... more When installing Photovoltaic on Building, the mounting system significantly affects the heat-exchange between the module and the building envelope and the operating temperatures of the PV modules that strongly influence the energy yield of the PV system. For this reason it is important to be able to simulate and evaluate in advance the behavior and the possible advantages of a certain type of installation. This study aims to quantify the gains or losses in performance which are obtained by different levels or types of integration. Two outdoor measurement test stands were used to reproduce a realistic BIPV module integration: one of them without any ventilation in roof-top position (6° from the horizontal) and the other one in vertical facade position, ventilated and not. Some free-standing (ventilated) modules with 45° and 6° inclination are used for inter-comparison. The module packages consisted in different insulating materials and air cavities with always the same micromorph mod...
When dealing with renovation or restoration projects aiming to improve the energy performance of ... more When dealing with renovation or restoration projects aiming to improve the energy performance of a building belonging to a country’s historical and cultural heritage cultural heritage it is necessary to carefully weigh different aspects such as: energy efficiency, modernization or comfort. The EnBau project focuses on energy retrofitting of historic heritage buildings with high architectural values to be preserved. The main focus of this project is to find appropriate solutions combining the interest for energy improvement and monument protection without risking damaging the irreplaceable historical values. Technical solutions are presented through the analysis of three Swiss case studies. The objective of this paper is to raise the awareness of restoration experts regarding energy efficiency issues, providing them with potential solutions by developing a useful decision-making tool.
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Papers by Francesco Frontini