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Emerging Technologies Project for the 2013 Building Technologies Office's Program Peer Review
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Emerging Technologies Project for the 2013 Building Technologies Office's Program Peer Review
Emerging Technologies Project for the 2013 Building Technologies Office's Program Peer Review
NREL's high-impact photovoltaic successes in fundamental research, advanced materials and devices, and technology development contribute to: 1) boosting solar cell conversion efficiencies, 2) Lowering the cost of solar cells, modules, and systems, and 3) improving the reliability of photovoltaic (PV) components and systems.
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Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories conducted a first-ofits- kind study to help dispel misperceptions that many existing rooftops cannot carry the actual load created by rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) installations. Test data on rooftop structure load capacity wasn’t previously available to the industry, and research to collect such data was made costly by the need to test each scaled structure to the point of failure. The Energy Department funded this study to provide scientific data to the industry that can decrease uncertainty, help eliminate misperceptions, and ultimately alleviate extraneous solar PV permitting costs.
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The rooftop solar PV permitting process involves a number of steps and varies greatly, even between neighboring cities. Jurisdictions follow state or national codes, but each may interpret the codes in their own way and insert additional requirements. In some locations, a rooftop structural analysis conducted by a professional engineer is required before a rooftop solar permit is issued. The extra step is not universally applied across states or municipalities, and can alter scheduling logistics and add hundreds of dollars to the cost of the system.
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This case study describes how North Shore-LIJ Healthcare System installed and financed a 50-kilowatt solar array on one of their auxiliary buildings.
The high thermal resistivity of polyisocyanurate insulation is attributed to its closed cell structure that is filled with low-thermal-conductivity blowing agent vapor. However, existing polyisocyanurate products exhibit a decrease in their thermal-resistance values at lower temperatures due to the condensation of the blowing agent vapor. Because use of insulation with higher thermal resistivity can lead to improved energy efficiency of commercial buildings, which results in lower operational greenhouse gas emissions, there is a clear need to address this reduced performance at lower temperatures through product innovation.
Through funding provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has used subject matter experts to compile a set of checklists to help Puerto Rico and other communities prepare for storms. Renewable energy and distributed energy systems have the potential to provide power to neighborhoods, vulnerable residents, and certain facilities within a community, if those systems are designed to provide power during a grid disruption. The storm-hardening checklists provide storm preparation actions that can increase the chances that solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are available when communities need them most. This resource was translated from English to Spanish for greater acessibility.
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When photovoltaic modules are installed on rooftops the temperature is dependent on both the geographic location and the mounting configuration. If the mounting structure does not provide sufficient air flow in a hot environment, the 98th percential temperature will exceed 70 degrees C which according to IEC TS 63126 requires higher levels of thermal stability testing. However, a simple there is not a clear way to determe which temperature level is needed for a particular location and system design. In this work we identify a relationship between the gap between the rooftop and a module and propose methods to describe minimum gaps for a given location. Because system designs vary in more ways than just the gap, we show how to determine an effective gap which can be simply applied to generic calculations. Lastly, we show measurements and calculations from several systems to demonstrate how this method could work.