Electrical design guidelines for photovoltaic/thermal systems

In photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) systems, the performance of cells in a receiver is affected by the thermal design of the system. A significant differential between the inlet and outlet temperatures of the cooling fluid will cause electrical performance to be degraded because of the higher average cell temperatures and because of temperature-induced electrical mismatch among the cells. The study reported in this paper assessed the degree of power loss as a function of the inletoutlet temperature differential and the seriesparallel interconnection pattern. It also quantified the variation of the peak power voltage with insolation, inlet fluid temperature, and fluid temperature differential to assess the impact on the array/inverter interface.