Innovative cooling for PV panels: Energy and exergy assessments of water-induced V-shaped channels

Abstract

Panel temperature is one of the important parameters that influences the output from a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel. Higher panel surface temperature leads to deterioration of the electrical output of the panel. Many researchers have tried to improve the panel's cooling performance using various active and passive techniques. The present experimental investigation aims to estimate the panel performance of a PV panel fitted with V-shaped aluminium cooling channels at its back surface as a passive technique. Water is made to flow in these channels to cool the panel. The volume flow rate in the cooling channels varies between 0.3LPM and 0.6LPM in steps of 0.1LPM. All the chosen flow rates used in the study tend to improve the panel's output in terms of electrical efficiency through a drop in the panel temperature. For the volume flow rate corresponding to 0.3 LPM, a temperature drop of about 12.7 °C is seen, contributing to a decrement of about 21.6 % compared to the plain PV panel without cooling arrangements. The modified panel also yields about a 2.26 % improvement in electrical efficiency for the volume flow rate of 0.5 LPM, despite being a cloudy day. Therefore, the PV module equipped with V-shaped water-cooled channels is recommended for the enhanced performance of PV installations.

Keywords

• PV cooling
• V-shaped channel
• Exergy
• Electrical efficiency