Numerical Study of the Efficiency of a Solar Panel with Heat Sinks

Abstract

The electrical efficiency of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels depends on their temperature. One of the significant problems consists in the overheating due to the total radiation energy, the ambient temperature, and the low capacity to dissipate this thermal energy. To improve the efficiency of solar panels, a numerical study was carried out using the ANSYS-Fluent 2021 commercial software in which the heat transfer between a solar panel with and without heat sinks was modelled, determining the incidence of fins in power generated by the photovoltaic cell. For the development of the study, initially, the theoretical calculation of the heat transfer and the generated power that occurs in the cell with and without a heat sink was carried out. Therefore, numerical simulation was conducted to analyse the effect of the geometry of the heat sink on the efficiency of the photovoltaic cells; different arrangements of rectangular fins were taken, varying their height (10 mm, 25 mm, and 50 mm). For the model’s configuration, boundary conditions corresponding to physical phenomena such as solar radiation and forced convection were considered. Results show an increase on the solar PV panel efficiency of 0.36%, 0.72%, and 1.07% for the height heat sinks of 10 mm, 25 mm, and 50 mm compared to the commercial PV solar panel without heat dissipation, respectively