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viewing board that displays the output (City of Melbourne, 2004). The system is rated
at 200 kW p and is expected to generate 252 MWh/year.

Figure 10.1. Cumulative installed capacity of PV modules in the IEA PVPS
reporting countries. (Data from the IEA-PVPS website www.iea-pvps.org, IEA-
PVPS, 2004a.)

10.2 PV SYSTEMS IN BUILDINGS

PV systems can provide power for a number of functions in a building (Stone &
Taylor, 1992):
1. Architectural—for both electricity generation and roofing, walls, windows,
skylights or shading devices.
2. Demand-side management—for offsetting daytime peak loads.
3. Controls—for direct driving of fans, pumps, ‘smart’ windows etc.

4. Hybrid energy systems—supplementing other sources for lighting, heat
pumps, air conditioners, emergency power supplies etc.

Fig. 10.2 shows an integral photovoltaic system in a grid-connected home.
Development of appropriate products to meet such functions is opening up a large
market, since buildings consume a major portion of generated electricity—two thirds
in the USA (Ibid.).
A wide range of specific building-integrated PV (BIPV) products are now on the
market (Hänel, 2000; Posnansky et al., 1998; Reijenga, 2003; von Aichberger, 2003),
especially for roofs, façades and as architectural elements in atria etc. The safety
arrangements for these systems are discussed in Section 10.5. To date, however,
normal modules are most commonly placed on roofs to supplement grid power. For a
household system, the essential components are: PV modules, a grid-interactive

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