Thermal cooling of photovoltaic panels using porous material

Abstract

An effective photovoltaic thermal regulation technique using porous material confined at the backside of the panel is proposed. Numerical thermal analysis was conducted to study the case of a steady-state mixed convection heat transfer with solar radiation using ANSYS® Fluent. Discrete Ordinate (DO) model was validated and used to simulate actual solar radiation on a 2-D model. The investigation addressed the effect of the convective parameter (λ), Darcy number (Da), inclination angel (θ), porous thickness ratio (S p/S), and emissivity (ϵ) on the average Nusselt number at the tedlar layer and the conversion efficiency (η) of the PV module. Compared to the clear domain, it was found that for three porous fins, five porous fins and porous layer cases the percent increase in efficiency was 6.73%, 9.19%, and 8.34%, respectively. Also, the buoyant effect overcame the friction effect in the natural-dominant regime and the percent decrease in the friction was 138.52%, 206.22%, and 118.64%, respectively for the same porous configuration order. It was also found that increasing the emissivity (ϵ) of the duct base wall enhances the cooling effect as it dissipates heat from the domain.