The Impact of Cracks in BIPV Modules on Power Outputs: A Case Study Based on Measured and Simulated Data

Crack issues afflicting a building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) system are major concerns in terms of the system’s maintenance and power degradation. Although there may be many circumstances that bring about cracks in BIPV modules during the installation process, identifying the degradation of PV module efficiency resulting from the effects of cracks tends to be a very difficult task unless actual indoor or outdoor tests or detailed electroluminescence imaging tests are conducted. Many current studies have demonstrated that cracks may or may not impact the output performance of PV modules depending on the damage levels or where the damage is located. For BIPV applications such as replacement for building materials, there is still a lack of information and case studies addressing crack issues in a quantitative manner for evaluating BIPV output performance. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to investigate the effects of cracks in BIPV modules on power outputs and to identify detailed relationships between the cracks and power output based on experimental and simulated analysis. An experimental facility located in Daejeon, South Korea, was used to gather data from cracked and non-cracked BIPV modules. By using the field-measured data and facility’ information, a simulation model was developed using SolarPro software, and a simulated-based analysis was conducted to evaluate the impact of cracks in BIPV modules on output values after proper validation of the model. The results from this study reveal that cracks in BIPV modules exhibit significant degradation in BIPV modules’ outputs of up to 43% reduction during the experimental period. From the annual comparative results, output degradations of 34.6–35.4% were estimated when the BIPV modules included cracks. As a result, the cracks in the BIPV modules could be carefully addressed as issues occurring in the BIPV installation process.