Energy recovery from the enclosures between the glassing covers in a compact photovoltaic thermal collector

Abstract

The awareness of bearing the cost due to the release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere encourages people and governments to reduce their carbon emissions through the optimization of energy production devices. This research was performed for this purpose. Compact (Integrated) solar water heater (CSWH) is the most cost-effective collector due to its simple design. The use of two glass covers along with flat reflectors has increased the efficiency of this collector. In such system, energy recovery from the enclosures between the glassing covers was not reported. In this paper, the simulation for an enhanced compact photovoltaic thermal (PVT) system in EES software is conducted. The collector is a triple production in the form of hot water (stored in water storage tank), hot air (stored in multistage phase change materials (PCMs) due to energy released from the collector two air enclosures), and electricity (generated by a-Si semi-transparent module as an absorber plate). Simulation results show a 3.4% increase in the thermal efficiency of the proposed system compared to the previous passive systems. The minimum required masses for PCMs inside two cascade tanks were obtained 8.6 (kg) of BioPCMQ23 type, and 18.7 (kg) of Lithium Nitrate Trihydrate type.