Thermal management of solar cells using a nano-coated heat pipe plate: an indoor experimental study

Abstract

With temperature increasing, the photovoltaic efficiency of solar cells is reduced significantly. Such an efficiency loss may offset the efficiency improvement because of the development of the photovoltaic technology. This paper provides a novel approach for efficiency loss recovery of solar cells. Specifically, a nano-coated heat pipe plate was integrated with the solar panel to remove heat from the hotspots on solar cells. This study concerns the indoor experiments of a commercial solar cell thermally managed with a heat pipe plate. The temperature rise and non-uniformity on the solar panel were quantified in different light irradiances. With thermal management by the heat pipe plate, the solar panel shows a temperature-rise reduction of 47–50%. This implies that half of the efficiency loss of the solar cell can be recovered. In addition, the temperature variation within the solar panel is reduced to 1.0–2.5 °C, which is beneficial in prolonging the longevity of the solar cell. In the experiments, the heat pipe plate can provide a cooling flux of 380 W/m2 with light irradiance below 1000 W/m2. By incorporating the heat pipe plate with a water jacket, the heat removal flux could be improved to 600 W/m2, leading to a solar cell temperature of a few degrees higher than the ambient. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.