Rapid evaluation of the design and manufacture of cooling systems of photovoltaic solar panels

Abstract

A new methodology is presented in this paper to encourage the growth of renewable energy technologies in hot and arid countries. PV solar panels are characterized by a decrease in efficiency with the increase in temperatures. This means in hot sunny countries, the actual output will decrease, affecting the power output despite the high availability of sun irradiation. In order to address this issue, a new methodology has been developed and presented in this paper to support system’s designers and manufacturers; which allows rapid testing and assessment of the design in consistent way within a short period of time. The approach, named Rapid Evaluation of Solar panels Cooling (RESC), is novel as it combines rapid laboratory testing, with in-situ experimental data to evaluate the cooling technologies that are integrated into solar panels. Modular and scalable designs of passive (chimney effect) and active (fan) cooling methods were tested. The results show that the suggested approach is successful in comparing between the cooling technologies to assess their performance and the payback period within a short period of time. Carbon savings are also calculated for the suggested cooling technologies. The results show that the best energy performance was found to be for the fan-cooled system with overall 12.3% improvement in annual energy output. However, when compared to the payback period on financial investment, the passive cooling is found to more appealing. The key advantage of cooling technologies is found to be in producing an additional significant level of power during summer days when the surface temperature of the panel is at 70 °C or above. Hence, in such conditions, the cooling process could result in an increase in power output of about 53.15% relative to the uncooled standard panels.