Comparison of different cooling options for photovoltaic applications

A temperature increase plays a negative role on photovoltaic (PV) panel conversion efficiency by increasing recombination rates. In this study, air- and water-cooling options were simulated to investigate the efficiency behavior of a specific PV panel made of heterojunction Silicon (Si) whilst PV panel was cooling in operation by using ANSYS-FLUENT. For air cooling, two different options were suggested: air cooling with four different flow speeds and air cooling with a heat sink addition with three different flow speeds. As for water-cooling three flowrates were considered. Temperature distributions of PV panels for the all cooling options were demonstrated as a function of flow velocity of air and flowrate of water for different cooling conditions and compared with each other. The influence of temperature difference on panel conversion efficiency were also discussed. As a result, heat sink with a proper flow arrangement cooling option showed the best performance in terms of minimum material, minimum cost and minimum complexity with the 42 °C, 38.4 °C, 35.9°C average surface temperatures and 20.9%, 21.3%, 21.5% panel efficiencies.