Optimum BIPV Power Extraction and Eco-Environmental Assessment by Using Algorithms and BIM in Qatar

Energy is considered as the core element in the sustainable development. Mostly, energy is being used for human development essentials and the best practice to mitigate the pollution rates and the damages is to have a clean and renewable power production source which will help in achieving QNV 2030 and sustainable development targets. So, this thesis is focused on applying a feasible solar energy technology in Qatar to evaluate the energy, environment and economic assessment of the applied solar power technology. To begin with, the assessment needs to be applied on a building, project or facility that owned by the government of Qatar to assess the application based on these three aspects. Qatar has very high feasibility toward solar power and hence it suggested to use solar power for clean power generation. In addition, as buildings have unused spaces at the roofs, utilizing the roofs for clean Building-Integrated Photovoltaics power production will be beneficial. The Education city metro station was chosen for this case study. But, the roof has a lot of curvatures which will cause partial shading and will limit the power production. So, a novel approach of modeling the station by using Building Information Modeling (BIM) tool integrated with Genetic Algorithms (GA) optimization was adopted. The area of the roof can generate a 3,117,787,175 Wh within a whole year. This validate that the station is feasible for BIPV installation. As a next step, GA optimization method used to construct the optimum BIPV array configuration for maximum power production. The proposed configuration is 9×5 BIPV matrix array and it can generate a power of 169.6 × 10³ W considering optimization for the 45 areas. The feasibility of the proposed BIPV system evaluated by environmental and economic assessment by using HOMER. The BIPV system can save up to 4.6 × 10⁶ kg of CO₂, 20 × 10³ kg of SO₂ and nearly 10 × 10³ kg of NOX during the 25 years of project’s lifetime. Moreover, the total Net Capital Cost of the BIPV-grid connected system is 11.3 million $ which is the same price if the station is connected to the grid as standalone system. The system is worth investment due to the pollutants savings and the government of Qatar can reach its environmental, economic and energy targets. The study will enable the policy makers to have a clearer vision and to achieve the targets identified in the QNV 2030 of having a mix-grid, installing renewable energy technology source and reducing the air pollution and enhance the environmental condition of Qatar as part of its sustainable development vision. At the end of this study, it is suggested to increase the electricity tariff price by removing the subsidies price and to apply carbon tax and environmental regulations as part of the governmental law for the industrial and governmental sectors.