General information Location: Amersfoort, the Netherlands Sunshine hours (yearly average): 1 477 hours per year, 4,05 hours per day Type of project: Mostly residential buildings, some public facilities (a sports centre, a school and a kindergarten) Type of application: BIPV Time for design process: Different for different housing sections Time for construction: Different for different housing sections, from 1997 to 1999 Realization: 1999 [ Top ] Description Aim of the project is the full-scale demonstration of a 1 MW PV system in an urbanised area through the realisation of 500 PV houses grouped together in Nieuwland, Amersfoort’s new housing area. In detail, the projects furthermore aims at: demonstration of the technological and architectural potential of BIPV, reduced BIPV costs in terms of both module costs (economy of scale) and BOS-costs (through optimised integration), enhanced system performance through optimised design and improved quality control and commissioning procedures, establishment of an infrastructure for future co-operation between building companies, utilities, town planners and PV industry, essential for maturing BIPV technology, a contribution to the confidence of local authorities as well as project developers, architects and building industry of quality aspects of PV. The 1 MW project has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of the implementation of large scale, building integrated PV systems on a district level. We learned important lessons on a technical and organisational level to enhance the system performance of BIPV: Let performance guarantees be part of the contractual agreement with the pv subcontractor (rather than the price per kWp, the price is directly related to kWh); A modular design concept (here “one house – one inverter”) features lower costs (large amounts of standardised flexible units, reduced cabling costs, low grid connection costs and low costs of spare parts); Type tests prove to be necessary due to innovative pv techniques and new products being applied (as PV becomes more mainstream, and components are well tested, such type tests can be omitted); The design review is considered to be a preparatory step for the building inspection and commissioning (we believe this will remain an important element of quality control programmes of future PV projects). In general, we feel that intermediate inspections, during design and installation, are and will remain a necessary part of any building process, regardless a new technology is being used, or not. Testing before commissioning has proven to be essential: various faults by the PV installers were detected and corrected before commissioning could proceed. As far as organisational aspects are concerned, PV being realised by the property developer, seem to run more smoothly than PV being organised by an energy company. The latter is not used to the conventional building process. Communication is essential in all phase of the design process. Although REMU has put a considerable amount of energy into informing the occupants, it was apparently not enough to prevent a lot of questions. PV is still not a common phenomenon in the Netherlands. There is still a lot of Public Relations to do. The 1 MW project has increased the acceptance of building integrated PV, not only by the general public but also by professional parties like city developers, property developers, architects and building companies. The project has also persuaded property developers and architects to promote PV as a building component that can give a house an aesthetic surplus value. Some of the architects have already applied PV in other projects at their own initiative. [ Top ] System characteristics PV system power: 1 323 kWp on 500 houses, monitoring data concern 44 houses with 2,57 kW utility-interactive Type of building integration: roof-integrated Type of cell technology: multi-crystalline Module dimensions: 95 watts (27), manufacturer: Shell Solar Inverter: central 2500 watts (one per house), inverter manufacturer: Mastervolt Unforeseen Issues: In the planning stage a maximum of 5% loss due to shading and non-optimal orientation was allowed, with a tilt angle between 20 and 50 degrees. With the design as built (with a tilt angle of 70 degrees) the loss is estimated to be 16%. [ Top ] Project cost breakdown Initial budget based on 1,0 MW: € 8,6 million (because of the enthusiasm of the architects who all wanted to participate it has become 1,3 MW). PV systems, turnkey delivery: € 7 441 542 Monitoring system: € 152 016 Grid interfacing equipment: € 99 378 Building construction materials: € 451 965 Installation: € 306 302 Project management and engineering: € 776 418 Total project costs: € 9 227 621 In the present project the PV electricity cost price is € 1,15/kWh if all costs for project management, design, monitoring evaluation and dissemination are included. [ Top ] Performance characteristics The one house – one inverter concept has proven to be successful. The flexible Sunmaster 2500 inverter has eventually resulted in almost 400 well-functioning PV systems. I must be noted that on average the nominal inverter power is unnecessarily large with respect to the PV power; although no substantial negative effects on the yield has been observed, system price might have been still lower. The inverter efficiency measured at 10 % load was 88%, whereas it was designed to be 91%. After a number of technical problems in the pre-commissioning phases had been resolved (see chapter 3), the performance of the systems has proven to be in accordance with expectations. The absolute yield figures indicate, however, that the houses with steep roofs perform substantially less than the roofs with a small tilt angle. From an energetic point of view, such designs should have been avoided, moreover since in the initial requirements for design a maximum deviation of 5 % the maximum attainable yield was allowed (see Annex V). On the other hand, the more “vertical” applications increase the visibility of and the attention for PV, which is experienced as positive by professionals and public. In Nieuwland a good trade-off has been made between the direct technical revenues – the kWh’s - and those from publicity. Monitoring of all houses is still running and within the next it will year generate valuable statistical information on the performance of the systems. In general the project has been successful in a sense that property developers and architects have become convinced that PV is a building component that can give a house an aesthetic surplus value. Some of them have already applied PV in other projects at their own initiative. A large interest for Nieuwland is shown by visitors and the professional press, both national and international. Electricity generated: 1681 kWh from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2000 System availability: 100 % Incidents or Outages: 0 [ Top ] Project team Utility REMU is initiator and contractor of other parties. REMU, Ecofys and Novem have regular meetings for overall project management. REMU manages business with PV-suppliers, architects and building contractors. PV manufactures: Shell Solar, BP Solar, BRAAS (roofing company that uses Shell Solar laminates), Colt [ Top ]