CIGS-Facade

The reduction of CO2 emissions from buildings and decentralized energy generation have a number of advantages. These include local added value, greater independence of supply, mitigation of anthropogenic global warming with its harmful effects, reduction of other pollutants and environmental impacts of conventional generation, and often also purely private sector cost advantages.

As a technology for decentralised energy generation, photovoltaics could contribute around 10% of net electricity generation in Germany in 2019. The vast majority of photovoltaic modules by cumulative installed capacity are conventional roof-mounted systems. Only very few are integrated into the building envelope to date.

At the CIGS-Facade research project (facade-integrated Photovoltaic-Systems in CIGS-Technology), the HFT Stuttgart is researching the building integration of CIGS thin-film technologies under the management of ZSW (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg) and in cooperation with other industrial partners. CIGS thin-film modules that are particularly suitable for building integration are optimised for facade applications. The focus is on both manufacturing and systems engineering issues. An overriding goal is the transfer of thin-film technology into broad application.

In this project, researchers at the HFT Stuttgart are investigating the possible contributions of rear-ventilated PV facades to meeting the thermal energy requirements of various types of buildings with different uses. Different variants of building services engineering for thermal integration into the local supply are investigated.