Building ventilation system as a low-pass filter for intermittent photovoltaic electricity generation

Photovoltaic electricity generation, as a renewable energy resource, is gaining more attention recently to partially replace the conventional electricity generation due to the reduction in the costs of devices as well as other factors including `clean energy´ concerns. One of the most important problems associated with this kind of electricity generation is cloud-driven intermittency. This feature puts a barrier on deploying this type of power generation beyond some certain fraction of a feeder capacity (typically 10% to 20%). This study addresses the aforementioned problem and suggests a method to absorb a considerable fraction of the power associated with the Photovoltaic electricity generation intermittency. The case study is a Photovoltaic site associated with a commercial-size building and the goal is to smooth the generated power by the means of the ventilation system at the place. Numerical results at the end of this paper verify the feasibility of implementing such an idea.