Comparative study of double-pass flat and compound parabolic concentrated photovoltaic–thermal systems with and without fins

Abstract This paper presents a comparative study between compound parabolic concentrated (CPC) and conventional flat hybrid double-pass photovoltaic–thermal (PVT) systems. A mathematical thermal–electrical model is developed and verified with published experimental data. The use of detailed five-parameter electrical modeling in the analysis made it possible to estimate the electrical parameters of PV cells, such as voltage and current. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the effect of different design and operation variables such as length, packing factor, duct depth and flow rate on thermal and electrical performance. Furthermore, the study investigated the performance of proposed systems with fins attachment and the effect of their material and type on performance. The model is applied to simulate and analyze thermal and electrical performance of finned (F) and un-finned (UF) flat and CPC photovoltaic systems for a selected case at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The results show that annual thermal gain is 1% higher for flat-PVT (F) compared to flat-PVT (UF). On the other hand, the annual electrical gain for flat-PVT (F) is 3% higher than flat-PVT (UF). The CPC-PVT (F) is estimated to have more than 3% thermal and 8% electrical gain compared to CPC-PVT (UF). Among studied four configurations, CPC-PVT (F) system will have the best performance.

[1]  G. N. Tiwari,et al.  Analytical expression for electrical efficiency of PV/T hybrid air collector , 2009 .

[2]  Wei Sun,et al.  Experimental investigation of tri-functional photovoltaic/thermal solar collector , 2014 .

[3]  M. Bakker,et al.  Performance and costs of a roof-sized PV/thermal array combined with a ground coupled heat pump , 2005 .

[4]  Yosef Meller,et al.  Kaleidoscope homogenizers sensitivity to shading , 2013 .

[5]  M. Rosen,et al.  Performance evaluation of a double pass PV/T solar air heater with and without fins , 2011 .

[6]  Kamaruzzaman Sopian,et al.  Mathematical Model of Double Pass Photovoltaic Thermal Air Collector with Fins , 2009 .

[7]  Adel A. Hegazy,et al.  Comparative study of the performances of four photovoltaic/thermal solar air collectors. , 2000 .

[8]  Fang Tang,et al.  Performance evaluations and applications of photovoltaic–thermal collectors and systems , 2014 .

[9]  H. P. Garg,et al.  Conventional hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) air heating collectors: steady-state simulation , 1997 .

[10]  Xu Ji,et al.  The performance analysis of the Trough Concentrating Solar Photovoltaic/Thermal system , 2011 .

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

[12]  Kamaruzzaman Sopian,et al.  Experimental Investigation of Single Pass, Double Duct Photovoltaic Thermal (PV/T) Air Collector with CPC and Fins , 2008 .

[13]  Wei Sun,et al.  Thermal analysis of a high concentration photovoltaic/thermal system , 2014 .

[14]  Kamaruzzaman Sopian,et al.  Performance analysis of a double-pass photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) solar collector with CPC and fins , 2005 .

[15]  Tadayoshi Tanaka,et al.  New proposal for photovoltaic-thermal solar energy utilization method , 1994 .

[16]  L. W. Florschuetz.  Extension of the Hottel-Whillier model to the analysis of combined photovoltaic/thermal flat plate collectors , 1976 .

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

[18]  Kamaruzzaman Sopian,et al.  Performance analysis of photovoltaic thermal air heaters , 1996 .

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

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

[21]  Canan Kandilli,et al.  Performance analysis of a novel concentrating photovoltaic combined system , 2013 .

[22]  Tin-Tai Chow,et al.  A Review on Photovoltaic/Thermal Hybrid Solar Technology , 2010, Renewable Energy.

[23]  H. P. Garg,et al.  Study of a hybrid solar system—solar air heater combined with solar cells , 1991 .

[24]  Fang Tang,et al.  Comparative simulation analyses on dynamic performances of photovoltaic–thermal solar collectors with different configurations , 2014 .

[25]  H. P. Garg,et al.  Performance analysis of a hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collector with integrated CPC troughs , 1999 .

[26]  Kamaruzzaman Sopian,et al.  Performance studies on a finned double-pass photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) solar collector , 2007 .

[27]  Korbinian Kramer,et al.  Multi-linear performance model for hybrid (C)PVT solar collectors , 2013 .

[28]  Kamaruzzaman Sopian,et al.  Recent advances in flat plate photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) solar collectors , 2011 .

[29]  Kamaruzzaman Sopian,et al.  Design development and performance evaluation of photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) air base solar collector , 2013 .

[30]  Arvind Tiwari,et al.  Analytical characteristic equation for partially covered photovoltaic thermal (PVT) compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) , 2015 .

[31]  Kamaruzzaman Sopian,et al.  Performance of a double pass photovoltaic thermal solar collector suitable for solar drying systems , 2000 .

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

[33]  Kathi Kreske,et al.  Optical design of a solar flux homogenizer for concentrator photovoltaics. , 2002, Applied optics.

[34]  H. P. Garg,et al.  Transient simulation of conventional hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) air heating collectors , 1998 .