Techno-Economic Assessment of Rooftop PV Systems in Residential Buildings in Hot–Humid Climates

Ammar Hamoud Ahmad Dehwah, Muhammad Asif, Ismail Mohammad Budaiwi and Adel Alshibani
Additional contact information
Ammar Hamoud Ahmad Dehwah: Building Systems Program, Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
Muhammad Asif: Department of Architectural Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Ismail Mohammad Budaiwi: Department of Architectural Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Adel Alshibani: Construction Engineering and Management, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-19

Abstract: The application of renewable energy has been an integral part of the sustainability drive in the building sector and solar photovoltaic (PV) is one of the most effective technologies in this respect. The present study aims to investigate the prospects of solar PV in residential buildings in the hot–humid climatic conditions. The study discusses the utilization of building roofs for the application of PV in terms of potential hurdles and utilization factor (UF). Technical performance of PV systems has also been investigated in terms of power output as well as the energy saved as a result of the shading impact of panels for two types of residential units, apartments and villas. Investigation of 70 sample residential buildings reveals the average UF of 0.21 and 0.28 for apartments and villas, respectively. For the case study of apartment and villa residential units, roof UF has been found to be 13% and 15% with a respective PV output of 6079 kWh/year and 6162 kWh/year. Potential PV output at the city level has also been estimated. A sensitivity analysis has been conducted to evaluate the impact of various cost and design parameters on the viability of PV systems.

Keywords: buildings; renewable energy; solar energy; PV; sustainability; environment; techno-economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/10060/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/10060/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:23:p:10060-:d:454948

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().