Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications ― A review

This study scrutinizes the reliability and validity of existing analyses that focus on the impact of various environmental factors on a photovoltaic (PV) system’s performance. For the first time, four environmental factors (the accumulation of dust, water droplets, birds’ droppings, and partial shading conditions) affecting system performance are investigated, simultaneously, in one study. The results obtained from this investigation demonstrate that the accumulation of dust, shading, and bird fouling has a significant effect on PV current and voltage, and consequently, the harvested PV energy. ‘Shading’ had the strongest influence on the efficiency of the PV modules. It was found that increasing the area of shading on a PV module surface by a quarter, half, and three quarters resulted in a power reduction of 33.7%, 45.1%, and 92.6%, respectively. However, results pertaining to the impact of water droplets on the PV panel had an inverse effect, decreasing the temperature of the PV panel, which led to an increase in the potential difference and improved the power output by at least 5.6%. Moreover, dust accumulation reduced the power output by 8.80% and the efficiency by 11.86%, while birds fouling the PV module surface was found to reduce the PV system performance by about 7.4%.

Environmental Impacts on the Performance of Solar Photovoltaic Systems

Monitoring and performance analysis of grid connected photovoltaic under different climatic conditions in south Algeria

Investigation of solar PV performance under Doha weather using a customized measurement and monitoring system

Structural health monitoring plays an increasingly significant role in detecting damages for large and complex structures to ensure their serviceability and sustainability. Optimal sensor placement...

Computational methodologies for optimal sensor placement in structural health monitoring: A review:

PV (photovoltaics) performance evaluation and simulation-based energy yield prediction for tropical buildings

Optimal Sensor Placement Strategy for Office Buildings Using Clustering Algorithms

Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal. 

Sumanth Manthapuri

Papers

PV (photovoltaics) performance evaluation and simulation-based energy yield prediction for tropical buildings

Optimal Sensor Placement Strategy for Office Buildings Using Clustering Algorithms

Toward Responsible Design of Low-Carbon Buildings: From Concept to Engineering