Building integrated low concentration solar system for a self-sustainable Mediterranean villa: The Astonyshine house

In the last few years different concentrating solar systems have been proposed for building integration, since these systems allow a more flexible use of space, compared to conventional flat modules. In particular, concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems can take advantage of higher conversion efficiencies and thus of a larger amount of energy per square meter, especially in sunny and dry climates where the direct normal irradiance (DNI) is high. In this paper we present the Solar F-Light concentrator - a low-concentration building-integrated solar system for electric power production or water preheating, partial shading and building illumination - that has been first presented at the international competition Solar Decathlon Europe (SDE) 2012 in the Astonyshine villa. Astonyshine is a Mediterranean self-sustainable passive house with minimum energy consumption, whose electricity demand is satisfied by an array of 46 photovoltaic Solar F-Light modules generating a nominal power of 1380W. In addition, an array of 6 thermal Solar F-Light modules generates a thermal power of 880W. We will describe the structure and the performance of the Solar F-Light modules, together with the Astonyshine villa energy balance. Finally, possible ways to improve the energy performance will be reviewed, on the basis of the results obtained during SDE 2012. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.