Improving the Performance of Photovoltaic Power Plants with Determinative Module for the Cooling System

Abstract

The objective of this work is to analyze and evaluate the impact of cooling systems on photovoltaic modules (for electricity generation), applied at a pilot Testing Facility. The results obtained during this step are used as input in order to determine the best model to be applied at a real-scale Photovoltaic Power Plant (PVPP). This methodology is based on the monitoring and supervision of the operating temperature of commercial photovoltaic modules (PV), both with and without cooling systems, as well as on the study of the water supply design of the cooling system applied on a micro photovoltaic power plant which is connected to the commercial network. Through the analysis of the data, we observed that photovoltaic modules with cooling systems always operate at lower temperatures than the ones without cooling systems. During the testing period, the operating temperatures of the photovoltaic modules without cooling systems were above 60oC (with a maximum temperature equaling 68.06oC), whereas the maximum temperatures registered on the sensors of the model “A” were 43.55oC and 44.75oC, and the ones registered on the sensors of the model “B” were 46.76 and 48.33oC. Therefore, we conclude that the photovoltaic module with the cooling system model “A” is the most suitable for large-scale application, since it was the only model to present temperatures lower than the nominal operating condition temperature (NOCT) of the cell (47oC ± 2oC).