Contractors: Museu National de la Ciència i de la Tècnica de Catalunya, Laboratoire Analyse et Architecture des Systémes du CNRS, Teulades i Façanes Multifuncionals SA (TFM), BP Solarex

Power: 38,7 kwp

The museum has chosen a photovoltaic coloured façade as a technological and architectural covering for the dividing wall of the apartment building adjacent to the centre. The wall has been covered with a metallic structure or which were installed 527 photovoltaic modules connected to general grid. The coloured photovoltaic façade is mounted on a structure that reminds of a curtain-wall, so that it acts as a system that produces electricity and at the same time it also avoids that the dividing wall cools too rapidly down during the winter and overheats in the summer. Modules are of two types: standard high performance mono-crystalline blue cells and translucent, magenta and golden mono-crystalline which allow over 10% of solar radiation.

 

Despite the fact that the blue modules have a sunlight conversion efficiency  into electricity higher than the other two colours, it was chosen to prioritizing the aesthetic criterion ahead of some functionality, as this is a façade located in a place situated in a very busy and visible part on  Rambla d’Egara, one of the main streets of Terrassa. The PV installation has a power of 39.7 kWp and occupies an area of 300 m2. It produces annually about 40,000 kWh which is covering the 15% of the electrical demand of the museum, and has become an emblematic structure for both the museum and the same city of Terrassa.