Relevance of monocrystalline and thin-film technologies in implementing efficient grid-connected photovoltaic systems in historic buildings in Port Fouad city, Egypt

This study explores the potential of integrating PV technologies on pitched roofs in Port Fouad City, Egypt, that represent the dominant style of heritage buildings in coastal cities in the Mediterranean Sea zone, considering the challenges that affect the relevance of preserving the architectural identity. This research starts with the filtration step to shortlist the relevant PV technologies, followed by the simulation step using PVsol Premium for all roof surfaces. Finally, an optimization step is performed to achieve the optimum design. According to the simulation analysis, monocrystalline and thin-film technologies dominate the results. In contrast, installation of polycrystalline technology is inadequate in such type of villas under similar weather conditions in terms of their performance ratio (PR), PV generated energy, and annual yield. Moreover, despite the light weight of the thin-film tile, we observe that the monocrystalline array is more preferable than the thin film owing to its lightest overall weight and least covered area. The optimization results indicated that monocrystalline provides the highest PR (79.4%) and annual yield (1715.1 kW h/kWp) with the smallest covered roof area (7.2 m2) and total weight (78.2 kg), whereas thin-films are more relevant in terms of color complement based on architectural theme.