Planning security for the energy turnaround

Photovoltaic façades can cover up to 10 % of Switzerland's electricity demand in the future. Switzerland is one of the countries with the most experience in PV façades, both in the production of modules and in their application. In contrast to roof systems, however, the expansion of façades is currently below its potential. One reason for this is the lack of standards. Swissolar is now remedying this situation with a new document that simplifies the planning and fire protection verification of ventilated façades and is thus intended to facilitate the construction of PV façades. 

Excellent to moderately suitable facade surfaces in Switzerland have a potential of about 17 TWh of annual production, of which about 40 to 50 % is likely to occur in the winter half-year. PV facades thus have the potential to meet up to 10 % of Switzerland's electricity demand without taking up undeveloped land. 

On roofs, it is clear how PV systems can be built as safely as possible in terms of fire protection. For this purpose, there is a state of the art paper from Swissolar, updated at the end of 2022, which refers to the "Fire Protection Leaflet Solar Systems" of the Association of Cantonal Fire Insurers (VKF). This state of the art does not yet exist for façade systems, since the basis for the creation of such a document must first be tested and verified by means of elaborate fire tests. 

With the new transitional document "Planning and fire protection verification of rear-ventilated PV façades", Swissolar increases the planning security for building owners and planning offices with a procedure that is coordinated throughout Switzerland. At the same time, this ensures safety in buildings.

First Switzerland-wide vote for fire protection verification for PV facades

The document was developed by Swissolar in collaboration with the VKF, the building insurances of Bern and Zurich (GVB / GVZ) and with various experts from the fields of photovoltaics and fire protection. It provides a system categorization for buildings of medium height (11 to 30 meters) and high-rise buildings (30 to 100 meters). The categorization shows under which conditions PV facades can be built today without object-specific fire tests. In these cases, an argumentative verification procedure is now used. In this process, specifications are made for PV modules, cable routing, fire protection measures and other topics, which were derived from previous fire tests as empirical values. 

Numerous building owners are already planning and building PV façades today and thus making an important contribution to the energy transition. This document provides them with a concrete, usable solution until the basis for a state of the art paper has been developed. The binding state of the art paper will be developed by Swissolar together with PV and fire protection experts and in exchange with the VKF and published in autumn 2024.

You can find the mentioned documents here: www.swissolar.ch

Source: www.swissolar.ch