Abstract
The uncertainty regarding the capacity of photovoltaics to generate adequate renewable power remains problematic due to very high temperatures in countries experiencing extreme climates. This study analyses the potential of heat pipes as a passive cooling mechanism for solar photovoltaic panels in the Ecohouse of the Higher Colleges of Technology, Oman, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). A baseline model has been set-up comprised of 20 units, 20 mm diameter water-filled heat pipes, with a length of 992 mm attached to a photovoltaic panel measuring 1956 mm × 992 mm. Using the source temperature of 64.5 °C (337.65 K), the findings of this work have established that a temperature reduction in the range of up to 9 °C is achievable when integrating heat pipes into photovoltaic panels. An optimum spacing of 50 mm (2.5 times the diameter of the heat pipe) was determined through this work, which is also a proof-of-concept towards the use of heat pipe technology for passive cooling of photovoltaic panels in hot climates.
Highlights
The potential of using photovoltaic (PV) panels operating in areas with hot and dry climates, such as Oman, is vast due to the abundance of solar radiation
In order to improve the power generation performance of PV panels, cell surface temperatures must be decreased to bring them closer to the ambient conditions; this study introduces a must be decreased to bring them closer to the ambient conditions; this study introduces a heat pipe heat exchanger (HPHE) technology as a passive cooling mechanism to be integrated within heat pipe heat exchanger (HPHE) technology as a passive cooling mechanism to be integrated within
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used as the primary research method in this study by modelling the entire heat pipe integrated PV panel, made up of 20 units of HPHE installed below the 1956 × 992 mm PV surface
Summary
The potential of using photovoltaic (PV) panels operating in areas with hot and dry climates, such as Oman, is vast due to the abundance of solar radiation. Despite this advantage, the uncertainty regarding PV panels to generate adequate renewable power is still a problem due to extreme temperatures. The increase in energy demand is a challenge and the present study aims to optimise the renewable solar photovoltaic technology by increasing its operative range, which could contribute towards meeting the 5% energy consumption increase. The present study is consistent with the vision of Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) in the contribution to the national socio-economic development of the country through diversification to non-oil industries. Nasir and Al-Jabri [7] cited the Oman policy document “Vision 2020”, which stated that industrial diversification can achieve the development targets, which included the increase in the contribution of the non-oil sectors and non-oil exports to 13% of the GDP by 2020
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