This articles has been taken from NanoMarkets' upcoming report-"BIPV Glass 2014" and talks about various opportunities existing in BIPV glass segment. Solar energy sector is not able to perform well for quite a long time but how BIPV can score better compared to traditional solar panels, get your answer here.

1. The turnaround in the PV (photovoltaic) sector has been visible since the second half of 2013. And while
2013 was not a great year the solar industry, including BIPV (Building-Integrated Photovoltaics) in general
and BIPV glass in particular is beginning to pick up. While many firms offering BIPV glass have gone
under, the ones that emerged from the solar bust are still faced with the same problem; how to get their
products into the mainstream construction market and not just prestige buildings.
The conventional use of architectural glass range from the mundane—windows and skylights—to the
exotic, like building facades, curtain walls, atria, pergolas, and canopies. In any of these applications,
BIPV glass could substitute for regular architectural glass. BIPV glass is the largest part of the BIPV
market, but BIPV itself still represents a tiny share of the solar panel market itself, so that isn’t saying
that much. In addition, despite its many advantages, BIPV (again including BIPV glass) has never
managed to break out of the premium building product category and is used primarily on large corporate
headquarters and homes of wealthy individuals.
It is quite possible to imagine that BIPV glass will stay that way—there are plenty of building products
that never drop below the premium pricing that characterizes today’s BIPV glass. However, such building
products tend to support mostly medium-sized businesses that have little opportunity to grow. Or
sometimes these premium building products are supplied by small divisions of larger companies, but
typically the same modest expectations apply to these divisions too.
However, the expectation has always been that BIPV—glass or other—was the way forward to get PV
into a wide variety of buildings. The main driver here was supposed to be aesthetics—a BIPV building is
said to look nicer than one with large and very visible panels on the roof of a building. Not all architects
agree with this statement, but a lot of BIPV advocates hope that BIPV glass can actually help sell a
building.
But for now, what everyone agrees on is that the cost of BIPV glass can be prohibitive. Sharp, recently
showcased solar window and balcony railings at PV Japan 2013. The windows will cost around $2,000 per
square meter. Clearly, to drive BIPV into the mainstream, costs are going to have to drop considerably
and/or functionality will have to increase. Both approaches are plausible strategies.
In this context a number of approaches suggest themselves. At one end of the scale, an obvious thought
for BIPV glass firms is to bump up their marketing dollars for reaching architects; the main decision
makers when it comes to BIPV glass. At the other end are fanciful multifunctional strategies that
combine (say) lighting and PV into a single panel and therefore spread the cost across several
functionalities. Although this kind of thing is on the cusp of being commercialized, it isn’t here yet.

2. Cost Strategies for BIPV Glass: Design and Technology Strategies
Cost and design: Since all BIPV glass buildings are custom designed at the present time, cost can be
reduced based on thoughtful design prior to the BIPV glass being built in. For the reasons given above, it
is hard to find a completely conventional building that has taken advantage of this, but an example of
where design has helped reduce cost is the Future Business Centre, a new purpose-built business
innovation center in Cambridge (U.K.) aimed at supporting the growth of environmental and community
enterprises.
The cost per square meter of PV glazing in this building is said to be only marginally higher than the
conventional glazing on the building, Polysolar (U.K.), a local company, installed the solar PV glass façade,
a curtain wall in the stairwell, using Polysolar’s double glazed amber tinted PV glass, and an opaque
rainscreen cladding system to supplement the rooftop solar array.
This is not to say that the Future Business Centre is in some way unique, but is indicative of a hope that
the very high current costs of BIPV glass can be designed out without making any very elaborate
arrangements.
Cost and technology: Another way to reduce cost is to use low cost fabrication and materials
strategies. In this context we note that Pilkington has an alliance with Dyesol to create BIPV glass using
DSC PV. Meanwhile, Heliatek, a German OPV firm, has signed a BIPV glass joint- development agreement
with AGC Glass Europe.
These arrangements have several implications. One is that really big glass firms are sufficiently
interested in BIPV glass to become at least this involved. The other is that OPV and DSC have been
chosen, since this is a prima facie case for thinking that solution-processed PV layers are being
considered as a way to lowering the cost of PV.
Color and Lack of It as a Way to Differentiate BIPV Glass
Meanwhile, differentiating BIPV glass in the marketplace is not easy to do, since from the perspective of
a building owner the BIPV glass per se may seem an undifferentiated commodity. Long-term, many
product/market strategies may be devised that will help differentiate BIPV glass. However, at present
NanoMarkets believes that two of the main differentiators are—paradoxically—enhanced transparency
and enhanced color!
Colored BIPV: BIPV glass is now available in various designs and colors. Obviously, the less plain vanilla a
BIPV glass product is, the more appealing it can become to possible customers. This strategy may not
turn BIPV glass into a mass market, but it does stand a chance at least of expanding the addressable
market.

3. An actual example of how this might work is SwissINSO, which has formed a joint venture with Acomet
Solar (Switzerland) which is expert in metal and glass façade constructions. The duo plan to offer colored
solar panels to eliminate the problem of poor panel aesthetics that has hindered the development of PV
and solar installations on roofs, building facades and architectural projects in general. They recently
completed the first installation of light blue PV panels on a building façade, with several other projects
contracted in Switzerland and the UK.
Another example is provided by the solar windows made of colored amorphous silicon solar panels at
Barcelona’s Schott Iberica building. Geneva Airport also provides another instance of where colorful
BIPV glass panels have been installed.
Transparency as a selling point: Somewhat ironically, while color and tint may be a selling feature for
BIPV glass, so might transparency. The point here is that no BIPV glass can be completely transparent,
since it must absorb light to function as a PV panel. That said, a BIPV window that is more transparent
rather than less is more likely to achieve larger markets.
Transparency is normally achieved either (i) because the PV cell are so thin or laser grooved that it is
possible to see through or (ii) because crystalline solar cells on the laminate are spaced so that light
filters through the PV module and illuminates the room. The problem is that while more transparent
panels are more likely to be acceptable to the end user, they are also more expensive.