Demystifying the economic and energy potential of Building-Integrated Photovoltaics in achieving India's intended Nationally Determined Contribution

The focus of this paper is on a techno-economic analysis concerning Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) in the Indian context. Globalization and swift urbanisation have led to increased energy demand across buildings. India's contributions to environmental improvement are the most ambitious in current global development. The nationally determined contributions (NDCs) look at the country's policies and programmes promoting clean energy, enhancing energy efficiency, and developing resilient urban centres. It also captures citizens' and private sector contributions to combating climate change and abating pollution. Buildings account for 35– 45% of global energy consumption, and their use is increasing at an 8% annual rate. To overcome the environmental problems caused by fossil fuels, there is a need to use renewable energy sources optimally to meet the energy requirements of buildings in smart cities. Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) is suitable for India's highly populated cities because solar rooftops alone can't meet building energy needs. BIPV adaptation in congested structures requires economic analysis and discussion of NDC to determine optimal use. In this paper, the BIPV module is considered a source of clean energy for the building's facade (vertical portion), and a techno-economic analysis of BIPV modules has been performed and compared with the optimally placed rooftop PV module to explore the potential of BIPV in achieving India's NDCs.