Solar Green Roofs: A Unified Outlook 20 Years On

Abstract

Solar green roofs, namely, rooftops functionalized with properly selected living vegetation and photovoltaic modules, achieve an ideal symbiotic relationship in which the promotion of biodiversity and onsite renewable energy production are enhanced, while the roof provides a range of environmental, health, aesthetic, and economic benefits. This study provides a unified outlook of this important sustainability technology before its large‐scale uptake across the world, especially in polluted urban areas.

The “PV Rooftop Garden”: Providing Recreational Green Roofs and Renewable Energy as a Multifunctional System within One Surface Area

“…So far, however, it seems that photovoltaic energy production as well as roof greening still constitute exclusive choices in terms of ecological uses for a roof [35]. Even though there are numerous benefits related to the symbiotic combination of vegetation and energy generation, the number of solar green roofs was still considerably small in 2018 and was practically nonexistent a few years before that [36]. Because the market has reacted to this gap, systems for the combination of GRs and PVs have been developed.…”

Composite Indicators for Assessing the Carbon Emission Reduction on Bio-Ecoresilience of Residential Buildings

“…The European Union (EU) targets to reduce gas emission from 55% in 2030 to nearly zero in 2050 to achieve climate neutrality. Moreover, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSCD) targets to replace traditional energy by clean renewable energy in 2030 [1] by creating buildings with high-energy efficiency and passive design [5], [6].…”

“…Also, we will utilize renewable energy and green building materials to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the residential units. Thus, this Biophilic approach helps creating a resilient city [30] through achieving the following seven qualities: (1) Reflectiveness by ability to make future decisions based on skin kinetic measurements; (2) Resourcefulness by employing available cost-effective green building materials; (3) Robustness by complying with design building codes and regulations, and testing safety periodically; (4) Redundancy by absorbing, transforming and accepting climate changes; (5) Flexibility by modular design to enable easy implementation of any future technology; (6) Inclusive by enhancing ownership and personal vision of the residents, not exclusively the engineers; and (7) Integration by bring together interdisciplinary designs and technologies. Thus, our proposed system integrates of three aforementioned approaches: Biophilic, ecological and resilience approaches.…”