This school in Hong Kong is a great example of how solar cells can be incorporated into a building. It’s a primary school — the CCC Kei Wai Primary School on Ma Wan island. It was built to show students the potential of photovoltaic architecture. The roof has solar panels on top, and the skylights have thin-film solar cells in the glass.
The school generates 40kW of power, and provides about 10% of the total power used in the building. That’s no much overall, but BIPVs (building-integrated solar photovoltaics) are still in a nascent stage of development. The number of buildings worldwide with integrated solar power is quite small.
This school was the first non-government BIPV system in Hong Kong with grid-connection. It makes use of no less than three types of solar cells: Copper Indium Diselenide (on the roof), Poly-crystalline (in the skylights), and Amorphous Silicon (in the canopy).