Glare Hazard Analysis of Novel BIPV Module Technologies
Abstract
Although standard Photovoltaic (PV) modules use antireflective coating (ARC) to maximize solar energy transmission and minimize reflection they can cause glare hazards. Novel PV modules have been developed for building integrated photovoltaic systems (BIPV) to reduce the risk of glare hazard effects. In this paper, an outdoor measurement method to evaluate glare hazard of PV modules is proposed. Four different PV module glass and coating technologies are tested and compared. The results show that the relevant measure of glare (luminance) can be reduced by several orders of magnitude without reducing the performance of the PV module. The key to reducing glare is to reduce specular reflection and increase beam spread.