Efficiency improvement of the solar PV-system using nanofluid and developed inverter topology

Abstract

ABSTRACT With the increased power demand, the effort on the efficiency improvement of the existing renewable systems is also increased. One of the available options is the Solar PV-T cogeneration system. Such systems provide an alternative to utilize the extracted heat from the panel. As the electrical efficiency of the PV system mainly depends on the panel used and the power electronics converter efficiency. The panel efficiency increases with the reduction in panel temperature for particular isolation. And the reduction in power losses in the inverter can be achieved by reducing the number of device count of the inverter topology. For this, an efficient multilevel inverter (MLI) topology and nanofluid-based solar PV panel is proposed. The proposed panel uses TiO2 Nano-fluid as the cooling agent. The prototype of the developed panel is tested in the laboratory in which a decrease in panel temperature of 18.7 °C is achieved. Performance of the panel is compared with other experimental studies available as well as with water and airflow fluid in the same environmental condition. Results show that the proposed panel can absorb 27% more heat than airflow panel, and the improvement of about 1.17% in the efficiency of the panel is achieved. An efficient and reliable inverter topology focusing on utilizing a single source is proposed. The developed circuit structure is compared with other existing seven-level topologies, and it is found that the proposed topology utilizes only one dc source with the lowest device count, thus have lower losses. Performance of the system incorporating the developed PV panel and the proposed inverter is verified through required simulation analysis. Results obtained shows that the integrated system works properly with lower converter losses and panel efficiency of 16.38%. Therefore the proposed system is efficient and very much suitable for solar PVT applications.