Heat Pipe-Based Cooling Enhancement for Photovoltaic Modules: Experimental and Numerical Investigation

Shuailing Ma, Yingai Jin () and Firoz Alam
Additional contact information
Shuailing Ma: National Key Laboratory of Automotive Chassis Integration and Bionics, Changchun 130022, China
Yingai Jin: National Key Laboratory of Automotive Chassis Integration and Bionics, Changchun 130022, China
Firoz Alam: School of Engineering (Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-21

Abstract: High temperatures in photovoltaic (PV) modules lead to the degradation of electrical efficiency. To address the challenge of reducing the temperature of photovoltaic modules and enhancing their electrical power output efficiency, a simple but efficient photovoltaic cooling system based on heat pipes (PV-HP) is introduced in this study. Through experimental and numerical investigations, this study delves into the temperature characteristics and power output performance of the PV-HP system. Orthogonal tests are conducted to discern the influence of different factors on the PV-HP system. The experimental findings indicate that the performance of the PV-HP system is superior to that of the single system without heat pipes. The numerical simulation shows the effects of system structural parameters (number of heat pipes, angle of heat pipe condensation section) on system temperature and power output performance. The numerical simulation results show that increasing the angle of the heat pipe condensation section and the number of heat pipes leads to a significant drop in system temperature and an increase in the efficiency of the photovoltaic cells.

Keywords: solar energy; heat pipe; photovoltaic cooling system; photovoltaic efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/17/4272/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/17/4272/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:17:p:4272-:d:1464607

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().