Analysis and simulation of concentrating photovoltaic systems with a microchannel heat sink

Abstract A new cooling technique for low concentration photovoltaic (LCPV) system is presented using a microchannel heat sink. This study investigates the influence of operating conditions such as concentration ratio, cooling mass flow rate, wind speed, ambient temperature, and cooling liquid inlet temperature on the performance of the low concentration photovoltaic thermal system. A comprehensive thermal model is developed which includes a thermal model for the photovoltaic, coupled with a thermo-fluid model for the microchannel heat sink. The numerical results are validated using different sets of the available experimental and computational data. The variation of solar cell temperature and electrical and thermal efficiency with operating conditions is investigated using the energy budget approach to interpreting the influence of operating conditions. The predicted results indicate that the use of a microchannel heat sink is a very effective cooling technique. This is especially true for concentrated photovoltaic systems in which a significant reduction in solar cell temperature is attained, along with uniform temperature distribution. At a microchannel flow Reynolds number of 100, it is found that at a concentration ratio of 20, the local solar cell temperature varies between 33.5 and 35.6 °C, while at a concentration ratio of 40 the local solar cell temperature ranges from 37 and 41 °C. Furthermore, at a concentration ratio of 40, the electrical efficiency reaches 18.5%, and the thermal efficiency achieves the maximum of 62.5%, whereas the power loss in microchannel friction is estimated to be about 0.4% of the electrical power output. Finally, a comparison between the previous solar cell temperatures using different cooling systems and the current results using microchannel is conducted using the dimensional analysis approach to finding the common groups for the various cooling methodologies used. Comparisons indicate that using a microchannel cooling technique achieves the utmost possible reduction of solar cell temperature.

[1]  Andrew A. O. Tay,et al.  Testing of two different types of photovoltaic–thermal (PVT) modules with heat flow pattern under tropical climatic conditions , 2013 .

[2]  Pallippattu Krishnan Vijayan,et al.  Experimental and CFD estimation of heat transfer in helically coiled heat exchangers , 2008 .

[3]  Yongchen Song,et al.  Solar radiation transfer and performance analysis of an optimum photovoltaic/thermal system , 2011 .

[4]  C. Dey,et al.  Cooling of photovoltaic cells under concentrated illumination: a critical review , 2005 .

[5]  Arvind Tiwari,et al.  Experimental validation of glazed hybrid micro-channel solar cell thermal tile , 2011 .

[6]  Said Farahat,et al.  An improved thermal and electrical model for a solar photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) air collector , 2010 .

[7]  Mahmoud Ahmed,et al.  Performance enhancement of concentrated photovoltaic systems using a microchannel heat sink with nanofluids , 2016 .

[8]  R. W. Bentley,et al.  The development and testing of small concentrating PV systems , 1999 .

[9]  M. Eslamian,et al.  Laminar forced convection of a nanofluid in a microchannel: Effect of flow inertia and external forces on heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics , 2015 .

[10]  Mustafa İlkan,et al.  An experimental study on energy generation with a photovoltaic (PV)-solar thermal hybrid system , 2008 .

[11]  William Gerard Hurley,et al.  A thermal model for photovoltaic panels under varying atmospheric conditions , 2010 .

[12]  W. Beckman,et al.  Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes: Duffie/Solar Engineering 4e , 2013 .

[13]  K. A. Moharram,et al.  Enhancing the performance of photovoltaic panels by water cooling , 2013 .

[14]  Said Farahat,et al.  Thermal and Electrical Assessment of an Integrated Solar Photovoltaic Thermal (PV/T) Water Collector Equipped with a Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC) , 2013 .

[15]  William E. Boyson,et al.  Photovoltaic array performance model. , 2004 .

[16]  Sanjay Agrawal,et al.  Energy and exergy analysis of hybrid micro-channel photovoltaic thermal module , 2011 .

[17]  Hulin Huang,et al.  A parametric study of characteristics of concentrating PV modules , 2010 .

[18]  Sanjay Agrawal,et al.  Performance analysis in terms of carbon credit earned on annualized uniform cost of glazed hybrid photovoltaic thermal air collector , 2015 .

[19]  Seyfolah Saedodin,et al.  Enhancing heat transfer in microchannel heat sinks using converging flow passages , 2015 .

[20]  J. I. Rosell,et al.  Effect of a hybrid jet impingement/micro-channel cooling device on the performance of densely packed PV cells under high concentration , 2011 .

[21]  Paolo Rosa-Clot,et al.  Optical and thermal behavior of submerged photovoltaic solar panel: SP2 , 2012 .

[22]  Shafiqur Rehman,et al.  Performance evaluation of a PV (photovoltaic) module by back surface water cooling for hot climatic conditions , 2013 .

[23]  Oussama Rejeb,et al.  A numerical investigation of a photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) collector , 2015 .

[24]  C. S. Rajoria,et al.  Exergetic and enviroeconomic analysis of semitransparent PVT array based on optimum air flow configuration and its comparative study , 2015 .

[25]  Shyam,et al.  Performance evaluation of N-photovoltaic thermal (PVT) water collectors partially covered by photovoltaic module connected in series: An experimental study , 2016 .

[26]  Masoud Rahimi,et al.  Heat transfer augmentation in a hybrid microchannel solar cell , 2013 .

[27]  Thomas Sattelmayer,et al.  Development of a Seawater-proof Hybrid Photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) Solar Collector☆ , 2013 .

[28]  Clement Kleinstreuer,et al.  Computational Analysis of Nanofluid Cooling of High Concentration Photovoltaic Cells , 2014 .

[29]  Clement Kleinstreuer,et al.  Concentration photovoltaic–thermal energy co-generation system using nanofluids for cooling and heating , 2014 .

[30]  Fang Tang,et al.  Dynamic characteristics modeling of a hybrid photovoltaic–thermal solar collector with active cooling in buildings , 2014 .

[31]  I. Dincer,et al.  Performance evaluation of a hybrid photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) (glass-to-glass) system , 2009 .

[32]  Sanjay Agrawal,et al.  Design, modeling and performance analysis of dual channel semitransparent photovoltaic thermal hybrid module in the cold environment , 2016 .

[33]  M. Saffar-Avval,et al.  Experimental and numerical investigation of nanofluid forced convection inside a wide microchannel heat sink , 2012 .

[34]  Shafiqur Rehman,et al.  Experimental and numerical study on non-concentrating and symmetric unglazed compound parabolic photovoltaic concentration systems , 2014 .

[35]  J. Lienhard.  A heat transfer textbook , 1981 .

[36]  Peiwen Li,et al.  CFD study of liquid-cooled heat sinks with microchannel flow field configurations for electronics, fuel cells, and concentrated solar cells , 2011 .

[37]  Tapas K. Mallick,et al.  Numerical Investigation of Micro-channel based Active Module Cooling for Solar CPV System , 2014 .

[38]  Swapnil Dubey,et al.  Fundamentals of Photovoltaic Modules and their Applications , 2010 .

[39]  Mohan Kolhe,et al.  Performance analysis of water cooled concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) system , 2012 .

[40]  Chuncheng Zuo,et al.  A novel multi-layer manifold microchannel cooling system for concentrating photovoltaic cells , 2015 .

[41]  Fahad A. Al-Sulaiman,et al.  Experimental and numerical performance analysis of a converging channel heat exchanger for PV cooling , 2015 .

[42]  Stéphane Colin,et al.  Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Minichannels and Microchannels , 2005 .

[43]  Karima E. Amori,et al.  Analysis of thermal and electrical performance of a hybrid (PV/T) air based solar collector for Iraq , 2012 .

[44]  Joshua M. Pearce,et al.  Optimizing limited solar roof access by exergy analysis of solar thermal, photovoltaic, and hybrid photovoltaic thermal systems , 2014 .

[45]  Jicheng Zhou,et al.  Temperature distribution of photovoltaic module based on finite element simulation , 2015 .