Building integrated photovoltaic for thermal comfort in Bahraini buildings

Abstract EN

Analyzing the hourly average dry-bulb temperature for each month, recorded in Bahrain, and comparing it with the thermal comfort zone-published earlier- we found that only march, November, and April fall in the comfort zone for only 14 hrs.

for April and November (actually they are 420 hrs.

throughout these two months) and only 8hrs for march (actually 240hrs throughout this month).

This means that only about 8 % we can live comfortably with no electricity for cooling or heating throughout the year! This means that mechanical cooling, mainly, devices are important to fulfill the requirement of comfort zone in buildings.

Therefore, the high solar radiation intensity in Bahrain-ranging from a minimum of 3.25 kwh /m2, in December, to a maximum of 7.19 kwh /m2, in July- can be utilized for energy production for cooling via building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV).