Experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamic study of an active ventilated façade integrating battery and distributed MPPT

Abstract

Ventilated Façades integrating photovoltaic panels are a promising way to improve efficiency and the thermal-physical performances of buildings. Due the inherent intermittence of the non-programmable renewable energy sources, their increasing usage implies the use of energy storage systems to mitigate the mismatch between power generation and the buildings’ load demand. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the thermo-fluid dynamic performances of a prototype integrating a photovoltaic cell and a battery as a module of an active ventilated façade. Based on an experimental setup, a numerical study in steady state conditions of flow through the air cavity of the module has been carried out and implemented in a fluid-dynamics Finite Volume code. In order to assess the viability of the prototype, the calibrated model was lastly used to predict thermal performance of the prototype on different climate conditions supporting its further improvement.