International Journal of Energy Research, Vol.42, No.5, 1921-1933, 2018
An investigational back surface cooling approach with different designs of heat-absorbing pipe for PV/T system
A solar photovoltaic panel accumulates substantial amount of heat, which deteriorates its performance. Thus, to minimize the panel temperature, 3 new designs (semioval serpentine, circular spiral, and circular spiral semiflattened) of absorbers for back surface cooling are introduced in this paper. Experimental investigations on the panel performances with and without the designed cooling systems are performed. A similar experiment with an existing serpentine design of absorbers is also conducted, and the results of all the experiments are compared. The circular spiral semiflattened design absorber has shown preeminent performance among all the absorbers in terms of the highest improvement in efficiency (4.32%), fill factor (19.80%), etc.
Keywords:back surface cooling;cooling arrangement;heat absorber design;performance of PV module;photovoltaic;thermal system