BUILDING INTEGRATED PHOTOVOLTAICS IN HONOLULU, HAWAI‘I: ASSESSING URBAN RETROFIT APPLICATIONS FOR POWER UTILIZATION AND ENERGY SAVINGS A D.ARCH PROJECT SUBMTTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF ARCHITECTURE MAY 2015 By Parker Lau D.Arch Project Committee: David Rockwood, Chairperson David Garmire Frank Alsup Tuan Tran Keywords: Interoperability, BIPV, Urban Retrofit, Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency © 2015 Parker Wing Kong Lau ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller iii I dedicate this dissertation to my Mother and to those I have lost along the on journey. Your love and life stands as a guiding light in times of darkness. iv Acknowledgements I would like to first thank those on my dissertation committee for the support and guidance bestowed upon me over these past two years. To my committee chair David Rockwood for taking on this subject and motivating my architectural potential. To David Garmire for entering in on the project and adding his unorthodox scientific alternatives. To Frank Alsup, who showed interest in my subject from the beginning and taught me the value of metrics in Architecture. To Tuan Tran, your patience, advice and dedication to teaching students are a valuable asset that will take you far and cement your legacy. To Jordon Little, thank you for helping me bridge the gap between theory and practice. To all the Professors and Faculty at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, School of Architecture that have fostered my architectural education, I promise I will utilize it well. To all the architects, engineers and solar specialist that have shared their advice, stories and professional knowledge, I thank you. To my Practicum advisor Mr. Tjen Hian Ka, thank you for the opportunity to study and practice in Singapore, as well as explore South East Asia. It was a life changing experience burnt indelibly into my core. To Spencer Leineweber, you imbue an altruistic quality that conveys influence over all those you come into contact with; your counsel is invaluable and everlasting. To my father, who has had the greatest influence on my education and taught me about a multitude of issues confronting the world and the importance of concepts. And finally to my friends and family that have been along for the ride, I thank you and love you. Mahalo and Aloha. v Abstract It is forecasted the human population will increase by 33% by 2050 and 70% by 2100. With exponential population growth there exists a global energy demand to power the lives of humans and the cities they dwell in. To meet this need it is imperative that society curbs its greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption; clean energy is greatly needed. This requires major innovations in building technology, energy efficiency, power savings, recycling and renewable energy generation. This is paramount to sustaining natural resources and the human condition for future generations to continue into perpetuity. However daunting, this crisis gives rise to critical opportunities in the area of architectural design and resource augmentation. This D.Arch dissertation presents a technological building solution through an intrinsic application of nature and energy: The Sun and its light. The design development of a Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) awning system digitally retrofitted on a high-rise building in downtown Honolulu, Hawai’i will be assessed based its energy savings and power utilization methods. Measurements of this system will be in examining a methodology, which focuses on the duality of its active (photovoltaic) energy generation merged with its passive (shading) energy qualities. Investigation will focus on how to consolidate a merger for increased power potential in electrical energy performance, on-site energy savings, and progressive architectural design. The project looks at ten BIPV iterations, which use energy and daylight simulations, to judge the designs’ form and function. This is done to achieve a 1- to-10 BIPV factor, which balances certain qualitative and quantitative outlines for final implementation. From the research, design, data collection and energy simulations, it was discovered that in implementing the preferred BIPV façade retrofit, in downtown Honolulu, produced power savings in the magnitude of 7.8%, generated over 404k kWh/year and established a payback period of 4 years. Not only can BIPV design implementations provide for efficient cost dynamics but can also extend into future energy production and saving benefits. These aspects are crucial in providing a template for potential PV ubiquity and adoption within the built environment for better resource utilization and energy recycling in the 21st century. vi List of Tables Table 1: Best performing Thin-Film modules on the market ............................... 40 Table 2: Percentage of yearly sunshine in Hawai‘i ............................................ 107 Table 3: Pacific Davies Center’s annual electricity use ..................................... 129 Table 4: PDC’s Utility Bill ................................................................................... 146 Table 5: PV Module Choices ............................................................................. 165 Table 6: Orientation Estimation ........................................................................ 176 Table 7: BIPV Iterations ..................................................................................... 178 Table 8: Final BIPV iteration calculations .......................................................... 179 Table 9: Total systems cost of the final BIPV Iteration ...................................... 180 vii List of Figures Figure 1: Global warming estimates based on two modeling projections ............ 3 Figure 2: Increase in cooling demand and decrease in heating demand .............. 4 Figure 3: Profile of the Urban Heat Island Effect in Singapore .............................. 5 Figure 4: Source vs. Site Energy ........................................................................... 8 Figure 5: U.S. Energy Use in 2013 = 97.4 Quads or 285 Million GWH .................. 9 Figure 6: Global and tropical future temperature changes .................................. 12 Figure 7: Hawai‘i, U.S. (21.3° N, 157.8° W) ......................................................... 14 Figure 8: Hawai‘i vs. U.S. energy production ...................................................... 15 Figure 9: Effects of CO2 emissions on oceanic coral populations ....................... 16 Figure 10: Honolulu, Hawai‘i (21.3° N, 157.8° W) ................................................ 18 Figure 11: Examples of BIPV building material replacement ............................... 29 Figure 12: Fractured BIPV development chain .................................................... 31 Figure 13: Total cost of solar panel system ......................................................... 34 Figure 14: Photovoltaic process .......................................................................... 37 Figure 15: Photovoltaic unit to whole assembly .................................................. 37 Figure 16: Best research solar cell efficiency ...................................................... 42 Figure 17: The Carlisle house c. 1979 ................................................................. 44 Figure 18: Architect Martin Ferrero’s BIPV facades ............................................ 45 Figure 19: Comparison of Hawai’i vs. Germany yearly solar insolation .............. 48 Figure 20: Hawai‘i as East-West gateway ........................................................... 50 Figure 21: Before & after PV retrofit ..................................................................... 53 Figure 22: Construction of PV cassette system .................................................. 55 Figure 23: Retrofit for PV integration & Electronic Display of PV kWh/CO2 ........ 56 Figure 24: CIS Tower, Manchester, U.K. ............................................................. 57 Figure 25: Before BIPV Façade Retrofitting ......................................................... 58 Figure 26: BIPV shading device angled of 25° & BIPV section ........................... 59 Figure 27: BIPV Exterior of the Northumbria, Newcastle, U.K. ........................... 60 Figure 28: Caltrans Building, Los Angeles, C.A. .................................................. 62 Figure 29: BIPV Louvers in Caltran’s façade ....................................................... 63 Figure 30: BIPV Louvers + Double Skin Façade on the South Wall .................... 64 Figure 31: Singapore (1.3° N, 103.8°E) ................................................................ 66 Figure 32: Building Construction Authority Academy ......................................... 67 Figure 33: Tour of the BCA Academy .................................................................. 68 Figure 34: Exploded axonometric view of BCA Academy’s BIPV system .......... 70 Figure 35: BIPV Array Layout ............................................................................... 72 Figure 36: BIPV staircase tower and laminated louver system ........................... 74 Figure 37: Three tropical BIPV case studies: form vs. performance ................... 74 Figure 38: Solar Irradiance data from Systems A,