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Executive SummaryFor more than 30 years, there have been strong efforts to accelerate the deployment of solarelectric systems by developing photovoltaic (PV) products that are fully integrated with building materials. Despite these efforts and high stakeholder interest in building-integrated PV (BIPV), the deployment of PV systems that are partially or fully integrated with building materials is low compared with rack-mounted PV systems, accounting for about 1% of the installed capacity of distributed PV systems worldwide by the end of 2009. In this report, we examine the cost drivers and performance considerations related to BIPV for residential rooftops. We also briefly review the history of BIPV product development and examine market dynamics that have affected commercialization and deployment.As with many renewable energy technologies, system prices-in terms of dollars per installed watt of direct-current peak power capacity ($/W p DC )-have a significant effect on PV deployment. In general, the installed prices of BIPV systems are higher than PV system prices, but the cause of these price premiums-higher costs, higher margins, or other considerationsand the potential for price reductions remain uncertain. Using a bottom-up analysis of components and installation labor costs, we explore the cost trade-offs that affect the prices of residential rooftop BIPV systems. We compare the prices of three hypothetical BIPV systems with the price of a rack-mounted crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV system, the "PV Reference Case," which is the most commonly installed residential system technology. One of the BIPV cases is a derivative of the c-Si PV case ("BIPV Derivative Case"), and the other two BIPV cases are based on an analysis of thin-film technologies (Table ES-1). In today's solar market, few BIPV products are fully integrated with building materials as envisioned in these BIPV cases; therefore, the cases should be seen as near-term possibilities. In contrast, the PV Reference Case represents a 2010 benchmark system price from an NREL study that uses the same methodology to assess objective system prices (Goodrich et al. 2011). Comparing the hypothetic...
