Optimizing Building Form for Integration of Solar Photovoltaic in the Design of a Textile Industry in Katsina, Nigeria

Abstract

Energy as the backbone of world economic growth and development has resulted to depleting fossil fuel reserves, heavy CO₂ emissions and climate change. The industrial sector consumes over 50% of global delivered energy with its consumption growing by an average of 1.4% each year. Textile industries consume 25% of the delivered electricity use of non-energy intensive manufacturing industries. These factories extensive envelopes remain unexploited even as various available technologies and strategies exist to produce cost-effective energy solutions. This study aims to provide a design framework for optimizing building form for architectural integration of Building-Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) in designing a textile factory. The design parameters studied include plan layout, roof type, façade type, external building features, location, size, tilt angle, orientation and shading factor. The technology studied is crystalline silicon cell with an average commercial efficiency of 15%. Visual analysis is used to analyse the integration potential of BIPV while the analysis for optimizing BIPV performance is conducted using PVGis^® tool by Joint Research Center (JRC) to calculate the electricity generation potential of the BIPV systems under different combinations of values of the design parameters and Autodesk Ecotect is used to determine the self-shading factor of the different roof types. The results show that these solar photovoltaic systems could be integrated into the tilted roof, skylight, façade walls, façade glazing and external device of the factory’s building envelope. Optimum electricity is generated when modules are placed on surfaces with a tilt angle of 16° and an orientation of −4° (South −0°) with the crystalline silicon cell having a potential to generate an average monthly of 18.95 kWh/m² of electricity. The lean-to roof with rectangular plan performs best providing the largest surface for BIPV integration with no self-shading.