Effect on Temperature and Efficiency on Photovoltaic Module of PV/T System with Water Based Optical Filter

Abstract

Solar radiation has ultraviolet, visible and infrared radiations, in which infrared and ultra-violet part of the solar radiation are mainly responsible for the heating of solar cell. This decreases the efficiency of the solar cell by –0.3 to –0.5% K-1. When we increase the concentration on the solar cell then the heat becomes more prominent and causes the damage of the solar cell, and also decreases the efficiency of solar cell. In water based optical filter PV/T systems, the infrared and ultraviolet part of the solar radiation is filtered out and allows only visible part and some part of infrared, which are suitable for the solar cell according to spectral response of the solar cell used. By this approach, we can increase the overall efficiency of the PV/T system by utilizing heat part of the solar radiation as well. In this paper, comparative study has been done for the solar cell with optical filter and without optical filter in same concentration ratio with the V-trough concentrator. Temperature of the solar photovoltaic module without filter is higher than with the filter. So, PV/T system is more reliable than single photovoltaic or thermal system. It also enhances the overall efficiency of the PV/T system