An analysis of temperature distribution in solar photovoltaic module under various environmental conditions

Abstract

The operating temperature of the photovoltaic module is an important issue because it is directly linked with system efficiency. The objective of this work is to evaluate temperature distribution in the photovoltaic module under different environmental conditions. The results shown that photovoltaic module operating temperature depends not only on the ambient temperature or solar radiation dependent but also depends on wind speed and wind direction. It is presented that the mounting conditions which are not taken into consideration by most of the literature models also play a significant role in heat transfer. Depends on mounting type an increase in module operating temperature in the range 10-15oC was observed which cause further PV system efficiency decrease of about 3.8-6.5 %.