An advanced Photovoltaic/Thermal hybrid system with rapid heat evacuation technique

Abstract

The lack of efficiency in photovoltaic (PV) panels is mainly caused by the temperature elevation in the photovoltaic cells that occurs when a small amount of the absorbed solar radiation is converted into heat while producing electrical energy. However, the integration of a cooling mechanism as the bi-directional serpentine tube is capable of cooling the photovoltaic cells and producing hot water. In this work, a thermal study evaluates the Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/ T) system's efficiency to optimize the electrical energy production. The effect of water flow rate variation was studied within the range of (0 L/min-7.4 L/min). The numerical result showed a remarkable temperature drop of 40.66% in the photovoltaic cells' temperature; from 60°C to 35.5 °C, using the tube with a water flow rate of 7.4 L/min. Thus, the proposed Photovoltaic/Thermal system shows high electrical performance and efficiency. Meanwhile, using a flow rate of 1.48 L/min, the tube provided optimum hot water at the outlet with an amount of heat of 53.6 °C. Taking into consideration that the temperature of water is 20°C at the inlet of the system. The proposed Photovoltaic/Thermal system was presented in this paper to improve the photovoltaic cells' efficiency and reduce their temperature.