TITLE:
Numerical Assessment of the Thermal Efficiency of a Concentrated Photovoltaic/Thermal (CPV/T) Hybrid System Using Air as Heat Transfer Fluid
AUTHORS:
Amadou Konfe, Boureima Kabore, Yves Christian Nonguierma, Fatimata Ouedraogo, Sié Kam
KEYWORDS:
PV Cell, Concentrating, Thermal, Energy Conversion, Cooling, Hybrid System
JOURNAL NAME:
Smart Grid and Renewable Energy,
Vol.15 No.1,
January
16,
2024
ABSTRACT: In this paper, we propose a thermal model of a hybrid
photovoltaic/thermal concentration system. Starting from the thermal balance of
the model, the equation is solved and simulated with a MATLAB code, considering
air as the cooling fluid. This enabled us to evaluate some of the parameters
influencing the electrical and thermal performance of this device. The results
showed that the temperature, thermal efficiency and electrical efficiency
delivered depend on the air mass flow rate. The electrical and thermal
efficiencies for different values of air mass flow are encouraging, and
demonstrate the benefits of cooling photovoltaic cells. The results show that
thermal efficiency decreases air flow rate greater than 0.7 kg/s, whatever the
value of the light concentration used. The thermal efficiency of the solar cell
increases as the light concentration increases, whatever the air flow rate
used. For a concentration equal to 30 sun, the
thermal efficiency is 0.16 with an air flow rate equal to 0.005 kg/s; the
thermal efficiency increases to 0.19 with an air flow rate equal to 0.1 kg/s at
the same concentration. An interesting and useful finding was that the proposed
numerical model allows the determination of the electrical as well as thermal
efficiency of the hybrid CPV/T with air flow as cooling fluid.