Experimental Performance of a Photovoltaic-thermal Air Collector☆

Abstract A photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) collector is a solar collector that combines a photovoltaic (PV) module with a solar thermal collector, and which produces electricity and heat at the same time. Depending on the medium used for collecting thermal energy, there are two types of PVT collectors: air-based and water-based. The integration of PV modules with thermals collectors could cause higher temperatures in the PV module, and this decreases the efficiency of PVT collectors. In order to have better performance of air-based PVT collectors, it is necessary to extract the heat, in the form of hot or warm air, from the PV module and thus decrease its temperature. The warm air extracted from the PVT collector can be utilized as a heat source for the building. In this study, an air-based PVT collector with a mono-crystalline PV module was designed, and its electrical and thermal performance was analyzed with the experimental results. The results indicated that the thermal and electrical efficiencies of the PVT collector were, on average, 22% and about 15%, respectively.