Building PV integration according to regional climate conditions: BIPV regional adaptability extending Köppen-Geiger climate classification against urban and climate-related temperature increases.

Despite the technical maturity and substantial potential cost reduction of BIPV technologies, there are still challenges to overcome for the expansion of BIPV applications and their wider adaptation at global level. Among these, the alignment of PV integration with particular climate and environmental conditions of the local solar architecture is crucial. This will facilitate the transition to sustainable buildings and the mitigation of climate change. In this context, this study proposes for the first time, a novel BIPV climatic design framework for PV buildings positioning and adaptation to local climate towards the minimization of energy expenditure and use of resources. With the review and analysis of a large numbers of BIPV studies globally for seventy parameters grouped in eight main categories of an open-access database, the global horizontal irradiation (GHI) value is selected as an additional index to the Köppen-Geiger classification scheme. The extension accounts for the urban suitability and vulnerability and prioritize the building integration of photovoltaics. Four zones of cold (low GHI), moderate (medium GHI), warm (high GHI) and hot (very high GHI) climatic regions are considered and applied for 127 cities globally. In this framework, the sequence of PV building component integration is proposed according to local climate of each zone and the energy performance of buildings is maximized towards their positive energy contributions and sharing in local, district and city grids. Barriers and limitations of the BIPV implementation at a larger scale are discussed and the emerging research needs are revealed. [Display omitted] • Literature on BIPV studies globally was reviewed and analyzed for seventy parameters grouped in eight main categories. • Global horizontal irradiation was considered as a new Köppen-Geiger climate classification index for BIPV. • A sequence of PV building integration component was obtained for one-hundred twenty-seven cities globally. • A BIPV climatic design framework for positive energy buildings was proposed towards carbon-neutral cities. • Main barriers and future research directions for widespread acceptance of BIPV technology were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]