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During the last 20 years the research of Building Integrated Photovoltaic Systems (BIPV) related with different techniques and concepts has been widespread, but rather scattered. In BIPV systems photovoltaic panels functioning as an integral part of the building envelope, therefore, enhances the aesthetic appeal of the building. In addition of providing renewable energy, they may also contribute to improving the indoor climate when thermal energy released during the conversion process is withdrawer efficiently, passively or actively recovered (BIPV/T). The increase in BIPV/T research since 1990s, is a consequence of the growing interest of the construction industry in offering new alternatives to traditional approaches. The paper is reporting in the first part, a BIPV classification focused on the building integration aspect and on the characterization of the main parameters involved rather than on technologies used or the performance aspects. In the second part, the paper is focused on reporting the experimental results from a particular application, a case study developed in Portugal, where a thermal storage element, Phase Change Materials (PCM) integrates the BIPV.

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Retrofit measures for buildings are in general evaluated considering the energy savings and life cycle cost. However, one of the main benefits, the increase of users comfort is very seldom analysed. In this work, two residential households representative of a large share of households in Portugal, were monitored and its thermal behavior was modeled using Energy Plus. The thermal evaluation of the pre-retrofit households shows that the winter season is problematic due to construction solutions and low availability for heating. The retrofit measures analysis was performed considering different retrofit solutions regarding envelope improvement and efficient systems implementation. In order to work around the question of comparing households that do not use energy for acclimatization and therefore have very low energy consumption, in the retrofit scenarios it was considered the thermal comfort evaluation value for the real case (pre-retrofit) and compared the energy consumption to achieve that same average comfort level (in this case avoiding high discomfort peaks). The measures that more rapidly pay the investment are those related with implementing active systems. The approach used in this paper, should be used in more calibrated models in order to have overall conclusions about the retrofit process at a larger scale.