Using energy balance method to study the thermal behavior of PV panels under time-varying field conditions

Abstract A precise estimate of PV panels temperature is crucial for accurately assessing their electrical performance. Therefore, in this study, one of the main aims has been to significantly improve the prediction accuracy of the PV cell temperature, by using realistic boundary conditions. Unlike previous thermal models in the literature, which usually focus on its mere application, a detailed step by step development and numerical implementation of the complete model has also been provided in great details in this work. The developed model is transient, so it can fully simulate the thermal performance of any PV panel under time-varying field conditions. Once the model is defined for a specific PV panel, the only external inputs it needs are the total incident solar irradiation, wind speed and the ambient temperature. The model has been adequately validated through PV panel’s datasheet provided information, literature data and against a versatile set of experimental data under various weather conditions. After thorough validations, the developed model was compared to various other widely used empirical, analytical and numerical thermal models from the literature. The comparison shows that by using realistic boundary conditions, the developed thermal model has far better prediction accuracy than other models from the literature. The methodology presented in this study is completely generic. That is, though it has been implemented and validated here for a silicon-based PV module the approach may be used to model any free-standing plane PV surface, with appropriate modifications to layer thicknesses and material properties. A range of weather conditions may also be accommodated.

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

[2]  E. Skoplaki,et al.  ON THE TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE OF PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULE ELECTRICAL PERFORMANCE: A REVIEW OF EFFICIENCY/ POWER CORRELATIONS , 2009 .

[3]  Jicheng Zhou,et al.  Temperature distribution and back sheet role of polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic modules , 2017 .

[4]  Brian Norton,et al.  Thermal modeling and experimental evaluation of five different photovoltaic modules integrated on prototype test cells with and without water flow , 2018, Energy Conversion and Management.

[5]  W. Beckman,et al.  Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes , 1985 .

[6]  Ephraim M Sparrow,et al.  Effect of Finite Width on Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow about an Inclined Rectangular Plate , 1979 .

[7]  David Faiman,et al.  Assessing the outdoor operating temperature of photovoltaic modules , 2008 .

[8]  William A. Beckman,et al.  Improvement and validation of a model for photovoltaic array performance , 2006 .

[9]  Nicolas Barth,et al.  A fully transient novel thermal model for in-field photovoltaic modules using developed explicit and implicit finite difference schemes , 2018, J. Comput. Sci..

[10]  D. L. Evans,et al.  Simplified method for predicting photovoltaic array output , 1980 .

[11]  M. U. Siddiqui,et al.  Three-dimensional thermal modeling of a photovoltaic module under varying conditions , 2012 .

[12]  Ha Herbert Zondag,et al.  The thermal and electrical yield of a PV-thermal collector , 2002 .

[13]  Ying Du,et al.  Heat transfer modeling and temperature experiments of crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules , 2017 .

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

[15]  Gilles Notton,et al.  Modelling of a double-glass photovoltaic module using finite differences , 2005 .

[16]  Gilles Notton,et al.  Calculation of the polycrystalline PV module temperature using a simple method of energy balance , 2006 .

[17]  Annette Hammer,et al.  Modeling of photovoltaic module temperature using Faiman model: Sensitivity analysis for different climates , 2017 .

[18]  Christos N. Markides,et al.  Dynamic coupled thermal-and-electrical modelling of sheet-and-tube hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) collectors , 2016 .

[19]  Viorel Badescu,et al.  A simple but accurate procedure for solving the five-parameter model , 2015 .

[20]  S. C. Solanki,et al.  Photovoltaic modules and their applications: A review on thermal modelling , 2011 .

[21]  Yegao Qu,et al.  A thermal model for amorphous silicon photovoltaic integrated in ETFE cushion roofs , 2015 .

[22]  J. Lloyd,et al.  Natural Convection Adjacent to Horizontal Surface of Various Planforms , 1974 .

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

[24]  Nicolas Barth,et al.  Two-dimensional finite difference-based model for coupled irradiation and heat transfer in photovoltaic modules , 2017, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells.

[25]  Chung-Feng Jeffrey Kuo,et al.  Dynamic modeling, practical verification and energy benefit analysis of a photovoltaic and thermal composite module system , 2017 .

[26]  A. D. Jones,et al.  A thermal model for photovoltaic systems , 2001 .

[27]  Carlo Renno,et al.  Experimental and theoretical model of a concentrating photovoltaic and thermal system , 2016 .

[28]  S. Kais,et al.  Theoretical Limits of Photovoltaics Efficiency and Possible Improvements by Intuitive Approaches Learned from Photosynthesis and Quantum Coherence , 2014, 1402.1923.

[29]  Eleni Kaplani,et al.  Thermal modelling and experimental assessment of the dependence of PV module temperature on wind velocity and direction, module orientation and inclination , 2014 .

[30]  M. Green,et al.  Optical properties of intrinsic silicon at 300 K , 1995 .

[31]  D. L. Evans,et al.  Terrestrial concentrating photovoltaic power system studies , 1976 .

[32]  Abul Fazal M. Arif,et al.  Electrical, thermal and structural performance of a cooled PV module: Transient analysis using a multiphysics model , 2013 .

[33]  E. Skoplaki,et al.  A simple correlation for the operating temperature of photovoltaic modules of arbitrary mounting , 2008 .

[34]  Nasrudin Abd Rahim,et al.  A Three-Dimensional Comprehensive Numerical Investigation of Different Operating Parameters on the Performance of a Photovoltaic Thermal System With Pancake Collector , 2017 .

[35]  M. Heck,et al.  Modeling of the nominal operating cell temperature based on outdoor weathering , 2011 .

[36]  Nicolas Barth,et al.  A computational analysis of coupled thermal and electrical behavior of PV panels , 2016 .

[37]  N. Boutana,et al.  An explicit I-V model for photovoltaic module technologies , 2017 .