Digitization of the Photovoltaic Integration in Buildings for a Resilient Infra at Large Scale.

What is it about?

Building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems have gained a lot of attention in recent years as they support the United Nations’ sustainable development goals of renewable energy generation and construction of resilient infrastructure. To make the BIPV system infra resilient, there is a need to adopt digital technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and robotics. In this study, the current challenges in the BIPV system, such as the rise in the temperature of the PV modules, the occurrence of various faults, and the accumulation of dust particles over the module surface, have been identified and discussed based on the previous literature. To overcome the challenges, the significance and application of the integration of these digital technologies in the BIPV system are discussed along with the proposed architecture. Finally, the study discusses the vital recommendations for future directions, such as ML and DL for image enhancement and flaws detection in real-time image data; edge computing to implement DL for intelligent BIPV data analytics; fog computing for 6G assisted IoT network in BIPV; edge computing integration in UAV for intelligent automation and detection; augmented reality, virtual reality, and digital twins for virtual BIPV systems with research challenges of real-time implementation in the BIPV.

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Why is it important?

The United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) emphasize the need to implement sustainable technologies by 2030 to support socio-economic development and human well-being [1]. The adoption of sustainable and renewable energy technologies upgrades building infrastructure and it results in the creation of resilient infrastructure for sustainable cities and communities [2,3]. In the SDGs, the United Nations also recommended increasing the contribution of renewable energy to global energy by 2030. Infrastructure development and technological advancements are essential to provide modern and sustainable energy services. In the current scenario, photovoltaic (PV) technologies emerged as the fastest growing technology in increasing the sustainable renewable energy practice worldwide. Solar PV is on course to account for 60% of global renewable power growth in 2022, followed by wind and hydropower technology [4]. To increase the PV penetration, the wide spread of PV plants installed on open fields, water surfaces as a floating PV system, and rural and urban buildings has been increased. The installation of PV technologies on buildings has been practiced from the early 1990s when the opaque panels were simply integrated into the building envelopes, also termed “BIPV”. Initially, the technology was mainly focused on remote applications, but as the population rose the per capita demand also increased. Therefore, the penetration of these technologies with grid connection has increased in the last two decades [5]. Irrespective of the capacity of installed BIPV technologies, the energy generation from the PV modules is very sensitive to internal and external parameters. The internal parameters include poor encapsulation of cells, broken interconnection between the cells, and cracks in cells [6]. The external parameters are adjacent shading, ambient temperature, humidity, and dust accumulation. These parameters decrease/deteriorate the power output from the PV system and increase the degradation rate [7]. Therefore, there is a need to increase and improve its maintainability, operating costs, availability, reliability, safety, life cycle, etc. As per the above discussion, there is a necessity to adopt innovative and sustainable technologies in developing resilient infrastructure to enhance the performance and reliability of BIPV systems. Currently, IoT, AI, robotics, edge computing, and drones are the emerging technologies recognized as key players to achieve energy-efficient digitalized BIPV infrastructure [8]. The main motivation for this work is to explore the potential of digital technologies in the BIPV system.

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