Impact of modules number of thermoelectric cooler coupled with PV panels and phase change material on building air conditioning

Abstract

This paper integrates a photovoltaic panel, phase change material, and thermo-electric cooling system into the room wall for air conditioning to replace conventional air conditioning with a new environmentally friendly system. This technique uses a photovoltaic panel on the wall's exterior to power the thermo-electric system in the wall's interior surface. Two phase change materials layers are installed inside the wall to extract the heat dissipation from the PV panel and the thermo-electric cooling system. A complete transient mathematical model for a room is constructed and solved numerically. The cooling system is studied in five wall positions: east, west, south, north, and the room's roof. The effect of each cooling system position on the room temperature, cooling capacity, and its coefficient of performance is investigated. The highest PV output power in the roof system is 857 W, while this number is 819 and 510 W for the east and west walls, respectively. The results show that the best cooling system performance is achieved at a specific number of thermoelectric elements, which is different for each wall position. It is 300 for the east and roof systems and 500 for the west and south systems. At this optimum number, the minimum room temperature reaches 19.4, 26.7, 26.6, and 20.4 °C for the east, west, south, and roof system, respectively. While, the maximum cooling capacity is about 1734, 2157and 1662 W for the east, west and roof systems, respectively. The lowest coefficient of performance value is 2, 4.35, and 1.9 for the east, west, and roof systems, respectively, making the new solar-powered system competitive with the conventional one.