Renovation of a residential building in Switzerland, with BIPV façades, in order to achieve the nZEB standard

Frontini, Francesco and von Ballmoos, Christian and Di Gregorio, Stefano (2014) Renovation of a residential building in Switzerland, with BIPV façades, in order to achieve the nZEB standard. In: Conference on Advanced Building Skins, 28-29 Oct 2014, Bressanone, Italy. (Submitted)

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Abstract

This paper presents the refurbishment of a tall building situated in Chiasso (Switzerland). The building envelope is completely covered by photovoltaic modules. The eight-storey apartment house was built in 1965 and was in poor condition after 45 years, when it was decided that refurbishment would be advisable. The target set by the owner was to renovate the building totally and to achieve the passive house standard. At the beginning of the construction phase the builders raised the goal even higher, and decided that the application of BIPV modules to the entire façades could achieve the Plus energy house standard (netZero Energy building). In addition to the BIPV façades, a single-axis tracking photovoltaic system was also installed on the pergola roof terrace in October of 2013, as a final option. Solar thermal collectors (vacuum tubes) are also used to reduce the heating demand and to increase the COP of the heat Pump. This paper describes the building before and after renovation, and discusses the critical points in the planning phase and during construction of the 45kWp BIPV ventilated façades. Moreover, in order to assess the mechanical stability of the glass-glass a-Si module assembly on the façades, mechanical stress tests were performed in the SUPSI laboratories. These tests are described in detail in this paper, together with an accurate raytracing analysis (based on RADIANCE tool simulation), executed in order to optimize the BIPV module strings and consequently to increase the annual energy production.

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