Abstract
The performance of photovoltaic (PV) panel is extremely sensitive to its operating temperature. Most of the energy absorbed by the panel is wasted in the form of heat and provides no value. Integrated photovoltaic thermal system can be a great solution to this problem. In this study, a numerical and experimental work is conducted on hybrid photovoltaic – thermal water heating system with front surface water cooling. First, a numerical analysis is conducted which is capable of describing various thermal parameters affecting the performance of photovoltaic panel and collector. The effect of supplying different mass flow rates of water over the individual photovoltaic and collector system and the overall system are examined thoroughly by experiment. The results of the numerical analysis are found in good agreement with the experimental analysis. Due to active cooling, it was also observed that the overall efficiency of the whole system is approximately five times higher than the efficiency of PV panel alone. Top surface cooling method significantly dropped the panel temperature and increased the panel efficiency by almost 1.5% with an overall system efficiency of around 80% where, PV and collector efficiencies are approximately 16% and 64% respectively.
Highlights
Photovoltaic (PV) cell or panel is a device which converts solar light energy into electrical energy
A water tank, a PV module, a flat plate collector and a storage tank is connected through a piping network
The main objectives of this study are to improve the efficiency of the photovoltaic panel by the natural flow of water from the
Summary
Photovoltaic (PV) cell or panel is a device which converts solar light energy into electrical energy. PV installations can be ground mounted, wall mounted or roof-top mounted. It can be fixed or a solar tracker can be used for following the sun across the sky. The low efficiency of the PV module is due to the reason that 80 to 90% of solar radiation is converted to heat (Bazilian et al, 2002). This loss heat can be recovered by using an integrated photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) system. The requirement of large space for installing separate PV and the thermal system is the main concern for the development of integrated photovoltaic-thermal system
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