PV/T Performance Evaluation as Electricity Generation and Hot Air Supplier for Fully and Partially Covered with PV Modules

Abstract

The solar energy system is environmentally friendly and the utilization of photovoltaic thermal collectors, (PV/T) has attracted more attention, which directly converts solar radiation into electricity and thermal energy simultaneously. This study investigated the air biased Photovoltaic thermal hybrid solar collectors, (PV/T) trend for two cases, denominate case one (PV/T system fully covered with PV modules), and case tow (PV/T system partially covered with glass). The studied parameters were solar irradiance and the air mass flow rate. The investigation has been performed in terms of outlet air temperature, electrical power, thermal and electrical efficiencies. A numerical model was developed using the computational fluid dynamic program (CFD) and the results were compared with the experimental measurements that carried out from indoor conditions using a solar simulator. A good agreement has been achieved between experimental and numerical results. The performance of both cases one and case two concluded that the PV/T system should be operating at a moderate air flow rate of 0.013 kg/s, which is the best mass flow rate. In addition, it has been observed that for case tow the maximum outlet air temperature and electric powers were 44.3 oC and 26.6 W, respectively. For case one, thermal and electrical efficiencies were found 34% and 10%, respectively, based on the experimental data, while for case 2, the maximum thermal and electrical efficiencies were found to be 48.9 and 9.1%, respectively