CACTUS

>>> Coming soon. Stay tuned!

- Justin McCarty, mccarty@arch.ethz.ch

- J. McCarty, C. Waibel, S. W. Leow, and A. Schlueter, "Towards a high resolution simulation framework for building integrated photovoltaics under partial shading in urban environments", Renewable Energy, vol. 236, p. 121442, Dec. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2024.121442

CACTUS was developed as a solution to the lack of high-resolution modeling and simulation workflows for building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) design. The workflow begins within the Rhino/Grasshopper environment and moves to a simulation environment nested in a Jupyter notebook. The combination enables designers to iterate through different array designs informed by selecting one of several different BIPV technologies and assess them with physics based modeling approaches that account for the sometimes highly influential conditions of the urban environment. The workflow comes complete with a tutorial that can be adapted easily to any building type.

Using the CACTUS platform, optimal PV panelization layouts on complex facades can be generated. More information on the BIPV Panelizer page.