INTEGRATION OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAICS AND URBAN FARMING FOR SUSTAINABLE BUILT ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

There is an increased emphasis placed on improving energy and food resilience. Land scarcity and resource constraint result in the need to source for additional sites supporting solar photovoltaic (PV) and urban farming systems–in particular, the façades of public residential developments in Singapore have been identified as a plausible area supporting the installations. However, the absence of a method to categorise solar exposure for public housing estates hinders the identification and subsequent fitting of the optimal set-up for PV systems and urban agricultural products at the predetermined infrastructure. Hence, this study aims to categorise solar exposure for the large-scale deployment of building integrated PV and agricultural systems. The research aim was achieved through simulating solar exposure in ten Singaporean public housing estates, establishing a framework for categorising solar exposure and subsequently recommending options for building-integrated PV (BIPV) and building integrated agricultural (BIA) systems in distinct public residential developments. Seven categories prescribing BIPV and BIA usage for specific daily light integral levels were developed. It was found that surface type and the shading effect imposed by adjacent buildings were vital factors influencing solar exposure and thus the categories assigned to precincts. Furthermore, recommendations for public housing design were proposed to support BIPV and BIA in future developments. Areas with potential for further study include: executing a study with physical experimental set-ups, increasing the sample size involved, extracting the latest building data from official government sources and introducing additional environmental parameters into the scope of research.