Numerical investigations of solar cell temperature for photovoltaic concentrator system with and without passive cooling arrangements

2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (12) ◽  
pp. 2514-2521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sendhil Kumar Natarajan ◽  
Tapas Kumar Mallick ◽  
Matty Katz ◽  
Simon Weingaertner
Author(s):  
Allison Gray ◽  
Robert Boehm ◽  
Kenneth W. Stone

Cooling of photovoltaic cells under high intensity solar irradiance is a major concern when designing concentrating photovoltaic systems. The cell temperature will increase if the waste heat is not removed and the cell voltage/power will decrease with increasing cell temperature. This paper presents an analysis of the passive cooling system on the Amonix high concentration photovoltaic system (HCPV). The concentrator geometry is described. A model of the HCPV passive cooling system was made using Gambit. Assumptions are discussed that were made to create the numerical model based on the actual system, the methods for drawing the model is discussed, and images of the model are shown. Fluent was used to compute the numerical results. In addition to the theoretical results that were computed, measurements were made on a system in the field. These data are compared to the theoretical data and differences are calculated. Theoretical conditions that were studied included uniform cell temperatures and worst case weather scenarios, i.e., no wind, high ambient conditions, and high solar irradiance. The performance of the Amonix high concentrating system could be improved if more waste heat were removed from the cell. Now that a theoretical model has been developed and verified, it will be used to investigate different designs and material for increasing the cooling of the system.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asmaa Ahmed ◽  
Katie Shanks ◽  
Senthilarasu Sundaram ◽  
Tapas Kumar Mallick

Concentrator photovoltaics have several advantages over flat plate systems. However, the increase in solar concentration usually leads to an increase in the solar cell temperature, which decreases the performance of the system. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate the performance and temperature limits of a high concentration photovoltaic Thermal system (HCPVT) based on a 1 cm2 multi-junction solar cell subjected to a concentration ratio from 500× to 2000× by using three different types of cooling fluids (water, ethylene glycol and water mixture (60:40), and syltherm oil 800). The results show that, for this configuration, the maximum volumetric temperature of the solar cell did not exceed the manufacturer’s recommended limit for the tested fluids. At 2000× the lowest solar cell temperature obtained by using water was 93.5 °C, while it reached as high as 109 °C by using syltherm oil 800, which is almost equal to the maximum operating limit provided by the manufacturer (110 °C). Overall, the best performance in terms of temperature distribution, thermal, and electrical efficiency was achieved by using water, while the highest outlet temperature was obtained by using syltherm oil 800.


Author(s):  
Ali Radwan ◽  
Mohamed M. Awad ◽  
Shinichi Ookawara ◽  
Mahmoud Ahmed

Abstract In this study, a new design of double layer microchannel heat sink (DL-MCHS) has been monolithically fabricated using 3D metal printer and experimentally examined as a heat sink for concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems. Single phase liquid cooling using ethanol and flow boiling cooling using NOVEC-7000 coolant in the designed DL-MCHS are experimentally compared. The results proved that using the flow boiling cooling technique for the CPV systems attained a lower solar cell temperature with high temperature uniformity. In more details, flow boiling in counterflow (CF) operated DL-MCHS, attained a very low solar cell temperature close to the NOVEC-7000 boiling point with temperature uniformity of 0.2 °C over a wide range of coolant flow rate from 25–250 ml/hr.


Author(s):  
Ali Radwan ◽  
Mohamed M. Awad ◽  
Shinichi Ookawara ◽  
Mahmoud Ahmed

Abstract In this study, the performance of concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) cell enhanced by using double layer microchannel heat sink (DL-MCHS) with nanofluid is investigated. Pure ethanol and 0.2 % Vol. Al2O3-ethanol are utilized to reduce the solar cell temperature under indoor solar concentration ratio of 5.7 Suns. The designed DL-MCHS is monolithically fabricated from Maraging steel using 3D metal printer. The experimental results showed that using parallel flow (PF) operation mode of the designed DL-MCHS is favourable for cooling the CPV system compared with the counter flow (CF) operation mode. In the cooled CPV using PF mode, the open circuit voltage enhancement is about 12.7% in comparison to the uncooled case. The nanofluid results also showed a reduction in the solar cell temperature in comparison with the pure coolant. The current results can be used as a validation step for accurate numerical modelling of nanofluid applications in CPV system cooling.


2018 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 02005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fathi Sanad Mohamed ◽  
Shaker Ahmed ◽  
O. Abdellatif Sameh ◽  
Elmahallawi Iman ◽  
A. Ghali Hani ◽  
...  

A super-passive cooling technique based on a thermal paste is proposed for PV efficiency enhancement in elevated temperature conditions. A mixture between carbon nanotubes and graphene having a promising Seebeck coefficient is chosen. An overall enhancement in efficiency by around 58% was reached while thermoelectrically supplying hundreds of micro-Watt per PV Watt.


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