Author links open overlay panelJinqing Peng, Jinyue Yan, Zhiqiang Zhai, Christos N. Markides, Eleanor S. Lee, Ursula Eicker, Xudong Zhao, Tilmann E. Kuhn, Manajit Sengupta,. Energy consumption in buildings has been steadily increasing and contributing up to 40% of t. Solar photovoltaic and/or solar collector products can integrate with building envelopes to form building integrated photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) systems, which can provide both. At present, in order to reduce building energy consumption and achieve the goal of building sustainability, many scholars have proposed concepts such as ultra-low energy buildings. The papers in this special issue described the state of the art of almost all fields of solar energy utilization in buildings, including solar PV generation, solar thermal for heating, hybri. The guest editors would like to express our gratitude to the publication team of the Journal of Applied Energy for their kind support and help in the organization and publication proce.