Finite Element Analysis Model of a PV module for Thermal Assessment

Abstract

This paper describes the procedure to build a finite element (FE) model for computation of module temperature distribution for given irradiance, wind speed, and ambient temperature. Temperature calculation using the Sandia model and the temperature computation using a physics based model assuming constant heat transfer coefficient are compared with the results obtained using a multiphysics solver. The multiphysics based model was found to closely match the mean field measurement. Such a model can be useful to accurately quantify the benefits in energy yield achieved through cooling of the module due to new bill of material components such as conductive backsheets under various field conditions.