Experimental and Simulated Evaluation of Temperature Effect on Panel Efficiency Performance with Front Water Cooling

Abstract

The solar photovoltaic (SPV) panel cell's temperature is the main parameter that gives significant effect on the conversion efficiency of SPV panel. In the present work, simple and efficient front water spraying cooling system in a photovoltaic panel has been designed and developed to introduce active cooling in order to eliminate heat. The performance of the proposed cooling system has been tested and evaluated for the weather climate of a city in Jitra Kedah, Malaysia. The experimental result revealed that with front water cooling system the cell temperature measured at the back of the solar panel can be significantly reduced up to 20–22 °C. Consequently the electrical efficiency of the SPV panel improves by 10.5% with the introduction of the proposed cooling technique.