SolarEnvelopeCentre

Project period

January 2023 to December 2025

Project management

Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE)

Funding organisations

Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK)

Project description

Why this project?
Architects, planners, project developers and component manufacturers are increasingly confronted with the demand for a balanced carbon footprint of the building through the integration of PV in the roof and façade. However, high planning costs due to a lack of expertise and limited experience often prevent the realisation of such goals. Planners are often overwhelmed by the interdisciplinary technological, planning and building law issues. Despite this, planners have to commit to meeting ambitious targets at an early stage - often even in the competition phase - even though detailed planning only takes place later. Difficult questions often arise:

• Which areas can and should be covered with PV?
• Can the aesthetic appearance be visualised and communicated to the decision-making bodies?
• Which stakeholders should be involved in the construction process and when?
• Is the chosen path really feasible? Are there (several) providers?
• How is the energy to be utilised (own consumption)? Are areas required for storage and routes?
• Determination of costs and income: Is the measure cost-effective?

Specifically, the project will develop technically, economically and architecturally advantageous basic solutions for the use of PV on buildings. No „design“ is provided, but rather „basic“ solutions that can be further developed by architects, planners and solar engineers. This means that technically feasible solutions can be used that fulfil the required normative requirements. The involvement of manufacturers ensures feasibility. Visualisation is important for decision-makers.

In order to alleviate the shortage of tradespeople, solar specialists are also involved via the DGS. Seminar documents on GIPV were developed and corresponding seminars were held at three locations. In addition, the training stands (in-roof and façade demonstrator) with over 18 different GIPV systems for the solar technicians were realised on the premises of and at the climate container (Solar Centre Berlin project) in Berlin Schönweide. The project partners also developed a web planning tool to support GIPV planning: https://www.bipv-planung.de/.

Digital models will soon be made available in a new industry standard as a VDI guideline and will be incorporated into standardisation through participation in the BIPV joint working group of ISO and IEC and in the revision of the BIPV standard EN50583.

Our vision:

The SolarEnvelopeCenter project is divided into nine work packages. The consortium currently comprises the following partners:

• Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research.
• German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence GmbH (DFKI)
• Drees & Sommer SE
• wulf architects
• IBC SOLAR AG
• German Society for Solar Energy, Regional Association Berlin Brandenburg e.V. (DGS)

between the participating research partners. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE is responsible for the coordination and management of the various working groups.