Publications

Abstract : Various solar energy technologies exist and they have different application techniques in the generation of electrical power. The widespread use of photovoltaic (PV) modules in such technologies has been relatively high costs and low efficiencies. The efficiency of PV panel decreases as the operating temperature increases. This is due to reflection from the top surface, absorption of heat by the parts other than the cell, absorption of heat from the other portion of thespectrum. In some instances, the cell temperature could reach up to 700C which decreases the output power by up to 0.65%/K and the efficiency to 0.5%/K of the PV module above the operating temperature. Therefore cooling is essential and a reduction by 200C will give an increase in efficiency by 10%. In this project, an attempt has been made to reduce the operating temperature of the panel by cooling the panel using finned heat pipe. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been used to design the fins and model the solar panel with finned heat pipe assembly. The CFD analysis have shown a maximum decrease of 20K.