Sun-Tracking Solar Intelligent Shading Systems with Embedded Photovoltaics for Enhancing Building Energy Efficiency: A Case Study of UK Educational Buildings

Given the escalating impact of climate change coupled with rising carbon emissions, there is an urgent need for emerging architectural technologies that redefine the design of sustainable building solutions. Solar energy represents a ubiquitous source of sustainable and renewable energy, while shading facades represents a passive cooling strategy by reducing solar heat gain. By investigating the intricate interplay between photovoltaic electricity generation, intelligent shading and solar tracking, this paper investigates how these intelligent systems affect solar gain, human comfort and productivity, and environmental impact. This study comparatively analyses the effect on building energy and photovoltaic loads by analysing key differences of building performance without shading, with fixed overhang shading and intelligent shading embedded with photo-voltaic cells with sun-tracking capabilities. There were significant performance differences that identified the benefits of using sun -tracking photovoltaic shading devices (PVSDs). The study focused on the running simulations within the canteen area of an educational building and the results proved the sun-tracking PVSD compared with no shading, reduced internal temperatures up to 24.15% through mitigating solar gain. Furthermore, a reduction of overall cooling load requirement from 6.36 to 4.05 kW to maintain a setpoint temperature of 23 °C in summer. Additionally, embedding photovoltaics onto the shading devices enhanced daylight control whilst ensuring minimum daylight factors of 2% could be achieved. Overall, the shading devices on the case study building contributed to a total energy generation of 42.54 MWh annually.