Building-Integrated Photovoltaics

I just had a conversation with a building contractor who specializes in eco-friendly residential improvements–in a part of the world where such a specialty is a big deal: Santa Barbara, California.

This was a great opportunity to ask questions about certain home construction technologies that seemed to have great promise 10 or 15 years ago, but for some reason never took off.  Among these is building-integrated photovoltaics, or BIPV.  As shown in the photo above, it isn’t on the roof; it is the roof.

The fellow gave me two reason for the slow adoption (failure?) of BIPV:

1) It’s very brittle, which makes roof repairs very difficult without cracking other panels,, and

2) The carbon footprint associated with making BIPV is still very high.

Interesting stuff.