Numerical model and experimental validation of the heat transfer in air cooled solar photovoltaic panel

Abstract

In this paper, a meticulous numerical model is developed and simulated using computational fluid dynamics technique so as to analyse the heat transfer and temperature distribution on each layer of the air cooled solar photovoltaic panel. The proposed numerical model comprises of bottom air cooling layer and diverse layers of solar panel such as glass, ethyl vinyl acetate, photovoltaic cell, and tedlar. The discrete ordinates model is employed to apply the solar load in the numerical computation. The computational fluid dynamics simulated average temperatures are compared with the experimental measured values and found to be in commendable agreement. The RMSE1, RMSE2, and R-squared values were obtained for top glass, tedlar and outlet air temperature is 1.112949, 0.022619, 0.998175, 0.993115, 0.019556, 0.998451, and 0.077683, 0.022618, 0.988113, respectively. The top glass and photovoltaic cell contour clearly visuvalizes the temperature distribution through out the layer. It is also found that the maximum top glass, photovoltaic cell, tedlar and outlet air temperature of photovoltaic-thermal system are about 58.06°C, 58.39°C, 59.44°C, and 45.48°C, respectively. This article has been corrected. Link to the correction 10.2298/TSCI170702161E