Effect of climate on electrical performance of finned phase change material integrated solar photovoltaic

Sourav Khanna*, K. S. Reddy, Tapas K. Mallick

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    116 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Photovoltaic (PV) cells absorb the incident solar radiation while operation of which, majority part causes heating leading to the hampered electrical efficiency. PVs can be integrated with phase change material (PCM) to maintain cell temperature within desired limits and the effect can be improved by deploying fins. The current work aims at analysing the effect of climate on the electrical performance of finned PCM integrated PV. Modelling of system has been done which has been validated using experimental results. For the study, fins with various spacings, thicknesses and lengths are used. The main conclusions of the study are, (a) for less alterative climate, the improvement in the PV electrical output (using finned PCM) is 9.7%, 10.8%, 11.3%, 11.6% and 11.6% respectively for a spacing of 1 m, 1/2 m, 1/3 m, 1/4 m and 1/5 m. For highly alterative climate, the respective values reduce to 6.6%, 7.6%, 8.1%, 8.4% and 8.4%, (b) for warmer climate, the output increases by 10.1%, 11.3%, 11.8%, 12.1% and 12.1% while for colder climate, it increases only by 5.4%, 6.1%, 6.5%, 6.7% and 6.7%, (c) for windy climate, the power increments are significantly lesser as compared to the other case, (d) climate having higher wind azimuth results in better performance of finned PCM, and (e) for clear sky climate, performance of finned PCM is better.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)593-605
    Number of pages13
    JournalSolar Energy
    Volume174
    Early online date24 Sept 2018
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2018

    Keywords

    • RCUK
    • EPSRC
    • EP/K03619X/1

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Effect of climate on electrical performance of finned phase change material integrated solar photovoltaic'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this