Solar Photo-Voltaic and thermal (PVT) system facilitated with novel coaxial condensing heat pipe (CCHP): Thermo hydrodynamic modelling and parametric optimization for overall operation performance

Abstract

Heat pipes offer tremendous potential for utilization in the energy and construction industries due to their excellent heat transmission efficiency. The current study involved the development of a theoretical model for thermal transport in a coaxial condensing heat pipe (CCHP) connected with solar photovoltaic and thermal (PVT) systems. Subsequently, parameter studies were conducted to analyze their impact on system performance, including irradiation intensity, surrounding temperature, inlet temperature, mass flow rate and PV coverage factor. In addition, temperature variation, thermal and electrical conversion capabilities of the CCHP/PVT system on typical days were discussed utilizing meteorological conditions in Wuhan city as inputs for the analysis. Our findings showed that the morning is when thermal efficiency is at its highest across the seasons, and it remained between 50% and 55%. Compared to natural cooling and conventional heat pipe cooling, the CCHP/PVT system reduced the temperature of the PV panels by approximately 30.3% and 16.3%, respectively. The proposed CCHP/PVT system has a respectively 14.4% and 5.2% enhancement in thermal and electrical efficiencies in comparison with those conventional heat pipes. Here, theoretical results agree well with former published ones, with average errors of no more than 10%. Our parametric investigations were then put into practice to assess the overall performance and to serve as a theoretical foundation for later development. It was really beneficial to boost the efficiency of solar energy utilization in the Yangtze River, China, where solar potentials were relatively poor than north western China.