Life span and overall performance enhancement of Solar Photovoltaic cell using water as coolant: A recent review

Abstract

In today’s world, as electricity consumption is increasing, people are more dependent on electricity. Solar Photovoltaic system is one method to generate electricity. The conversion efficiency of solar photovoltaic panel depends on atmospheric condition and reflection. The operating temperature of photovoltaic module plays an important role in performance of PV system as efficiency of PV system decreases when temperature module increases. The operating photovoltaic cells at high temperature degrades the material of it in long time. Operating solar photovoltaic at lower temperature will increase its lifespan. This will reduce module surface area by increasing overall output power. Researchers have proposed and tested several cooling techniques for the panel. One of the most common and effective way to cool PV module is used of water as coolant. In this paper, efforts made by various researchers to cool down solar photovoltaic module to increase the efficiency using water application have been discussed. The application of water on front surface, rear surface, both front and rear surface have been reviewed extensively. The performance of module by immersion in water also have been reported.