Multi-aspect approach of electrical and thermal performance evaluation for hybrid photovoltaic/thermal solar collector using TRNSYS tool

Abstract

The integration of photovoltaic (PV) module and thermal solar collector shows a strong potential for incorporation into hybrid solar-thermal (PV/T) system, mainly due to space constraints and benefits of electrical and thermal concurrent power generation. This work verifies, analyses, and compares a new component of PV/T which was created and programmed based on factual specifications in the TRNSYS environment and built a dynamic model of PV/T system. The new component of the PV/T was validated and evaluated experimentally and numerically using multi-aspect evaluation approaches. Electrical and thermal behaviour were studied by examining the effects of temperature controllers, using the daily hot water consumption profile, ambient temperature, cell temperature, and slope angles. In addition, the new component of the PV/T was compared with standard solar collector units and PV systems. This study found that the results of simulations and experiments were remarkably consistent and matched well. The correlation coefficient was 0.983 and 0.9783 for the thermal and electrical efficiencies, respectively. The most efficient PV/T system in electrical conversion was the PV/T with a PID controller, and the most efficient system in thermal conversion was the PV/T with an ON/OFF controller. The fulfilment model can serve for further PV/T system performance assessments.

Keywords

• PV/T
• Control
• PV/T performance
• Modelling
• Solar collector