Free standing PV as shading devices-How does it work

[Yahya]

Dear all,

I have been working on integrating PV as shading devices. I have simulated a two-storey simple building with a single room/thermal zone in each floor. The building has got 100% glazed facade, oriented towards south. I'm using the new feature of Geometric PV as shading device in form of horizontal louvres. I have changed the angle of inclination of the louvres to see how this change affects the daylight performance, solar gain, lighting gain and cooling load. The results were:
- There has been a clear reasonable effect on cooling load, solar gain.
- There is a negligible effect on daylighting! (Note that I have used sensors simulations here).
- I have run a simulation of FlucsDL and the images/results were identical! (Which doesn’t make sense).
- I compared the results of PV shades vs Local Shades to make sure that there is actually an effect of changing the angle of inclination of the external obstacles.
So the case now is to get an effect of PV as shading devices in the same way I get them for the Local Shades. To do so I run another set of simulations but this time I used PV on top of the Local Shades elements (kind of a combined option).
Now the results are to some extent satisfactory and closely enough with the daylight results of local shades.

Conclusion:
My understanding/interpretation of what has been happening is that the new feature (Geometric PV) might have not been interpreted properly by the daylight tools but they are still working for the thermal simulation only.
- Something might be an evidence of this, is that when I import PV panels (Geometric) as a GEM file, it is being translated/understood by VE as Local Shades and the lose all their PV features.

I would be most grateful if anyone could confirm that this is a reasonable approach, or not. This could also be a feedback that can help improving this highly appreciated feature for future releases.

Thanks a lot for your time spent reading this.

Best,

Yahya