Study a novel hybrid system for cooling solar panels and generate power

Abstract

As is known, most of the solar energy that falls on solar panels converts into heat energy causing an increase in its temperature and decrease in its performance. The dissipation of some heat from solar panels returns two benefits, the first one to maintain its electrical efficiency and the second to increase its operating life. In this paper, we demonstrated a new cooling technique capable to connect with the solar panel. The system works as a heat dissipater and an electrical generator at the same time and can be called thermos-magneto- generator (TMG). Thermally, the system consists of two regions with a difference in temperatures are the heat source and the heat sink. Since it needs a heat source and a heat sink, the solar panel itself is considered the heat source while the heat sink is just a flat plate at atmosphere temperature. After testing the system experimentally and theoretically by using COMSOL Multiphysics software (COMSOL), we assumed that a set of TMG units was installed on the back of a polycrystalline solar panel. The study included modeling the system in different solar radiations ranges from 500 W/m2 to 1000 W/m2, and atmosphere temperatures ranges from 270 K to 290 K. The modeling results showed the best case when the system works under the highest solar radiation intensity and atmosphere temperature but needs more units of the TMG in each meter square. Also, the results showed more than 99% of efficiency enhancement came due to the cooling process.