MIT’s Technology Review has an informative story about a new program from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology that involves a 15-month test of nine different building-integrated solar PV products. The nine products “fall within three general categories of photovoltaic cell technology — single crystalline, poly crystalline, and amorphous silicon — while embodying different manufacturing processes, materials, and design features,” according to the Web site of the institute, which is an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department. “The combination of features makes each of the nine roofing products unique and well suited to capture the robustness of simulation models used to predict their electrical performance.”

They don’t list the products being tested. I’ve sent in an e-mail to the institute to see whether ATS’s Spheral Solar/Elk Roofing product is one of the nine. The institute “hopes to use the data to build a computer program and database with, among other things, average flat-surface solar radiation readings for neighborhoods across the United States (as measured by the weather service at the nearest airport),” according to the Technology Review article. “Punch in the performance characteristics of the roofing product you want to use, plus your location, roof orientation and slope, and other data, and — bingo — you’ll know what kind of wattage you can expect from your roof.”

A sure sign that these products could soon become mainstream in home construction…

UPDATE: Brian Dougherty of the NIST says ATS’s Spheral Solar roofing product is not part of the current round of tests. “If NIST decides to evaluate a second round of BIPV roofing products — which, at this juncture, is unlikely — I would definitely keep the Spheral Solar product in mind,” he told me in an e-mail this morning. “Over the past few years, I occasionally obtain updates on progress with their silicon bead technology and remain very interested, especially because of its favorable charactertistics for BIPV applications.” A missed opportunity for ATS — and it wouldn’t be the first.

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