A novel heat exchanger design procedure for photovoltaic panel cooling application: An analytical and experimental evaluation

M.U. Siddiqui, Osman K. Siddiqui, A. Al-Sarkhi, A.F.M. Arif and Syed M. Zubair

Applied Energy, 2019, vol. 239, issue C, 56 pages

Abstract: The performance of photovoltaic modules is adversely affected by an increase in photovoltaic cell temperature. Cooling of panels may lead to temperature non-uniformity in the photovoltaic panel, thus limiting the maximum efficiency of the cooled photovoltaic panel. In the current work, the design of a novel heat exchanger that can be used for uniform cooling of photovoltaic modules is presented. For this purpose, a computational fluid dynamics model has been set up. Using the model, the effects of various heat exchanger design parameters (like channel numbers, manifold width, the location of inlet/exit ports, and tapered channels) on its performance are sequentially analyzed resulting in fourteen designs. The performance is quantified by three parameters: top surface average temperature, temperature non-uniformity for photovoltaic module cooling quality, and the heat transfer per unit pumping power. The resulting optimized design is found to be a novel V-shaped heat exchanger design for the photovoltaic module cooling. It has a lower average temperature and temperature non-uniformity, smaller hotspots, and lower pumping power. The optimal design is further examined using experimental particle image velocimetry measurements.

Keywords: Photovoltaic; Cooling; Heat exchanger design; Flow uniformity; Particle image velocimetry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.01.203

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