Studies on the performance of 150W solar photovoltaic module with evaporative cooling

Abstract

The increase in surface temperature of solar photovoltaic module due to incident solar radiation has an adverse impact on its performance, reducing its electrical output power and efficiency. Proper cooling can improve the electrical efficiency, and decrease the rate of cell degradation with time, resulting in maximization of life span of photovoltaic modules. Various methods like active cooling, passive cooling and heat pipe cooling are employed to cool the module. In the present work, water passive cooling technique has been used since this method is preferred for small modules and is more efficient because of higher thermal capacity of water. Evaporative cooling is one such technique. Numerical and experimental investigations have been carried out to study the effect of evaporative cooling on the performance of solar photovoltaic module. A two dimensional, steady state, cross flow, heat and mass transfer model has been developed and temperature distribution of air and water across a cooling pad has been studied. An evaporative cooling pad is incorporated at the bottom surface of solar photovoltaic module. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of solar PV module and the results are compared with that of numerical simulation.