The reckless exploitation of resources caused by rapid industrialization and technological development has led to the depletion of energy resources. Therefore, renewable energy is receiving great attention, and many studies are being conducted on solar energy. The efficiency of solar panels used to generate solar energy is affected by the intensity and altitude of the sun and ambient temperature, so many studies adopted solar tracking techniques using separate power supplies. However, there were contradictions in consuming energy to achieve the original purpose of generating energy. Therefore, studies integrating solar panels with movable or dynamic building envelopes have emerged in an attempt to resolve such issues. Therefore, this study suggests the technology and research direction of solar panels to be used in future movable building envelopes by analyzing their characteristics, advantages, and limitations by reviewing previous studies on combining movable building envelopes and solar panels. Ten papers on solar panels and building envelopes were selected by searching related keywords among academic papers published after 2000. The purpose, the solar module coupling method, the operation method of movable building envelopes, and the research results of these papers were analyzed, compared, and organized. The main findings are as follows. Most previous studies on building envelopes applying solar panels attempted to increase efficiency by using the mobility of movable building envelopes. However, various external factors were not considered and focused only on the solar panel. Therefore, further research should be conducted to understand the factors affecting the performance of movable building envelopes and solar panels and the concepts behind them. Also, future research should focus on a wider range of studies to supplement the limited scope of this study.
Energy consumption is increasing year after year, and the energy consumption in the building sector accounts for a significant part of the total consumption. The demand for technology development and research to solve increasing lighting energy consumption in buildings is growing, and daylighting systems are receiving much attention as a possible solution. However, there is still a lack of research on daylighting systems compared to building cooling energy. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the trend of daylighting system research related to improving the lighting environment and saving building energy and suggest future research directions for daylighting systems. Academic articles related to daylighting systems published in Korea after 2000 were analyzed, and the main findings are as follows. 1) The main content of most related papers was centered on combining various element technologies. These combinations focused on offering different functions from daylighting systems and integrating other fields, and most results showed improved daylighting performance compared to the single-structured daylighting systems. Also, recent research has begun to integrate IT, one of the core technologies of Industry 4.0, and this trend is expected to continue. 2) Most research on developing daylighting system technologies focused on daylighting control, which requires an optimal combination of operation and control, as mentioned above. 3) Most previous studies on daylighting systems validated the effectiveness of the proposed technologies but only focused on energy savings. These performance evaluations should have also considered the demand and satisfaction of occupants to verify the proper performance of daylighting systems. 4) Most previous works on developing daylighting system technologies did not consider or review economic feasibility (such as initial construction and maintenance costs), which is a major omission in demonstrating their effectiveness and a limitation of previous studies.
Energy use in the building sector continues to grow and the increasing trend could be a serious problem. Photovoltaic (PV) modules, which have emerged as a solution to this problem, are now becoming one of the popular renewable energy sources that convert solar energy, an infinite resource, into electricity, and related research and application cases are increasing. In recent years, there has been a surge in research to induce the reduction in building energy by applying PV modules as building envelopes, and much attention has been directed towards bifacial PV modules, a structure that improves power generation efficiency. Since bifacial PV modules have two layers of PV cells and show higher power generation efficiency compared to the existing monofacial PV modules, the value of bifacial PV modules is considered to be high. Thus, this study aims to derive the research trend of bifacial PV modules and recommend future research directions by analyzing research on bifacial PV modules that are applied as building envelopes. To do this, this study analyzed the trends of bifacial PV modules based on the research on bifacial PV modules conducted in Korea, and the conclusions are as follows:1) The efficiency of bifacial PV modules is higher than that of conventional monofacial PV modules, but the number of studies on their application as building envelopes is significantly insufficient. This is because monofacial PV modules have been popular and widely spread, thereby capturing a large share in the related markets, and this has led to the lack of awareness of bifacial PV modules. 2) Previous research on bifacial PV modules applied to building envelopes has focused on power generation efficiency. Thus, performance evaluation has been performed only with simple fixed types, so accurate verification of bifacial PV modules has not been conducted. Some studies have shown that bifacial PV modules of the movable type have high power generation efficiency, but even in these studies, there are research limitations in that the performance evaluation is carried out without considering the energy for moving. 3) We analyzed that the previous studies have limitations in that they do not closely examine the high heat generated by attaching PV cells to both sides of the bifacial PV module and the economic feasibility is also not assessed. In this regard, future studies on bifacial PV modules applied as building envelopes should avoid simply verifying the power generation efficiency. Moreover, it is necessary to advance the research on bifacial PV modules by conducting a study that considers multifaceted issues
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