BIPV courseware for higher education and professionals

Abstract

It is generally expected that in the future, photovoltaics will be able to contribute substantially to the mainstream power production, and that through their widespread commercialization, Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) systems will become the backbone of the zero energy building (ZEB) European target for 2020 [1]. An outlook on the BIPV market estimated the worldwide installed BIPV capacity during 2016 to nearly 2 GW, confirming the growing trend, increasing by 12.6% compared to 2015, when 1.78 GW were installed [2]. But the integration of BIPV is still going slow, which is unfortunate considering its potential. Despite technical promise, there is a notable disparity between the progress made in terms of the technology and the knowledge and skills of the professionals (architects, engineers, designers, planners) who are ultimately responsible for the integration of BIPV systems. This paper presents the results of the Dem4BIPV project, which has been designed to develop master-level courseware on BIPV for various European academic institutes. The structure of the lectures, the ideas behind practical assignments and on potential exam questions will be presented. Furthermore, a conceptual framework of the curriculum's content will be presented. The goal of the project is to develop 40 ECTS master-curriculum focusing on BIPV.