Thursday, 31st January 2008. Sustainable Energy Week, Brussels

This BIPV conference was organized in the framework of the Sustainable Energy Week, event which takes place each year in Brussels and is organized by the European Commission with strong support of European associations involved in sustainability, environment and energy.

The BIPV conference was organized by EPIA under the European SUNRISE project which aims mainly to promote the photovoltaic technology among the main stakeholders in the building sector as constructors, architects, electrical contractors and utilities within Europe.

Background

The photovoltaic sector has increased drastically in recent years; nevertheless, the deployment of this technology is still low in building environments due to several reasons: complex and long administrative procedures, high cost of installation, lower performances of the PV systems, no extra or low incentives to integrated building PV systems.

For this reason, more ad more countries are adapting their national incentive programs (feed-in-tariff) in order to provide higher support to this kind of installations compared to normal ones (ground-based systems) and make those projects more attractive for investors. This is already the case of France and Germany markets. Spain, the second PV market in Europe is now evaluating the possibility to differentiate those types of systems in their support program.

Buildings are responsible of 40% of the European energy consumption and therefore responsible of the 1/3 of the GHG emissions. There are many ways to reduce energy consumption as for example:

• Better designs (making better use of the sun light, windows and corridors designs, etc.)
• Proper materials (higher isolation, double glassing windows, reduction heat losses, etc.)
• Integration of renewable energy sources (concept of positive energy buildings) as thermal collectors for sanitary water, heating and cooling and PV modules for electricity generation among others.
• Last but not least, the behaviour of the occupants and possible acceptance for lower comfort levels.

The huge potential of photovoltaics is due to the fact that it is a unique reliable, clean and silent electricity source, which can be easily integrated in a decentralized way into cities, towns and built-up areas, while shifting power generation away from being large-scale and regionally located. PV distributed systems make possible to generate electricity where and when is more needed while avoiding high costs of the extension of the electricity grid.

14:00	Welcome & Introduction The urrent state of BIPV in Europe Alain Garnier, Saint Gobain Glass
14:20	Success stories of BIPV projects in: Spain – Alvaro Ponce, Isofoton France – Ariane Bischoff, Scheuten Germany – Erhard Krausen, Abakus Solar AG
15:20	Discussion
15:30	Coffee Break
16:00	Fields of cooperation
	Efficient buildings: Architects’ point of view - Ingo Hagemann, Architekturbüro Hagemann E2B JTI (Energy efficient buildings – Joint Technology Initiative) Javier Mardaras, Acciona Infrastructura & Claude Lenglet, Bouygues
17:00	Development of new products for BIPV - Hamid Batoul, Schüco
17:20	Presentation of EU-projects on BIPV Performance (PV as a building product) EUR-ACTIVE ROOFer (Installation of PV in buildings) Berrie van Kampen, TNO
17:40	Discussion & Conclusion Alain Garnier, Saint Gobain Glass
18:00	End of the conference

During the first session, three presentations were given by EU PV industries in order to show the Spanish, French and German BIPV market, current legislation and successful projects that have been realized. (See presentation 1, 2 and 3)

The second part of the event was dedicated to evaluate fields of cooperation between the PV sector, construction sector and architects.

The building was analysed from an architect’s point of view. The importance of integration of renewable energies in Buildings was highlighted. (See presentation 4)

The European Construction technology platform ECTP is working hard to launch a Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) call E2B (Energy Efficient Buildings). The JTI will be a long term partnership (with equal public and private funding) with a European scope in order to boost research on the fields of energy efficiency and renewable energies driven always by the industry. (See presentation 5)

Some especially designed PV products for BIPV were presented and several possible applications were showed. (See presentation 6)

The third session was dedicated to present two European projects (EUR-ACTIVEROOFer and IP PERFORMANCE) which work intensively in the pre-normative area of PV systems for buildings. On one hand, the Performance project aims the determination of requirements and test procedures that are compliant with building codes and standards in the EU with the eventually development of a European standard which covers aspects as: Mechanical resistance and stability, Safety in case of fire, Hygiene, health and the environment, Safety in use, etc. And on the other hand, the Eur-Activeroofer project aims to develop knowledge in crucial aspects like wind load, water tightness, snow and ice, etc. of vital importance to PV systems installers (roofers).

	EUSEW08_BIPV_1_AlvaroPonce-Isofoton.pdf	3.4 M
	EUSEW08_BIPV_2_ArianeBischoff.pdf	1.4 M
	EUSEW08_BIPV_3_ErhardKrausen-Abakus.pdf	3.0 M
	EUSEW08_BIPV_4_ClaudeLenglet_JavierMardaras.pdf	2.4 M
	EUSEW08_BIPV_5_HamidBatoul-Schuco_part1.pdf	2.6 M
	EUSEW08_BIPV_5_HamidBatoul-Schuco_part2.pdf	6.4 M
	EUSEW08_BIPV_5_HamidBatoul-Schuco_part3.pdf	2.9 M
	EUSEW08_BIPV_6_BerrieVanKampen-ECprojects.pdf	2.9 M

For further information about the European projects:		For any further details, please contact:
Sunrise	www.pvsunrise.eu	Daniel Fraile, EPIA
Performance	www.pv-performance.org	Scientific Officer
Activeroofer	www.euractiveroofer.org	Email: pol(at)epia.org
		Telephone: +32 2 400 10 62