Passive Cooling Configurations for Enhancing the Photovoltaic Efficiency in Hot Climatic Conditions

Abstract

Increased temperature of photovoltaic (PV) module decreases its performance; hence, integration of the cooling system is imperative in minimizing this detrimental effect. In this study, passive cooling of PV module with different heatsinks has been simulated by thermal models using ansys steady-state thermal software. The results were based on the effect of convective heat transfer coefficients from 5 to 1000 W/m2K for the temperature reduction of PV module using 19 different heatsinks. Three configurations: flat plate heat spreader, fin-only heatsinks, and fin-flat base plate combined heatsinks, have been studied at 35 °C ambient temperature and 800 W/m2 solar radiation. The result shows that at convective heat transfer coefficient of 10 W/m2K, the combined type model C7, and the fin-only type model B4 demonstrated around 18.94% and 9.36% lower PV cell temperature, respectively, than the flat plate type model A2. Moreover, C7 and B4 models had about 67.5% and 78.03% less material weight than the A2 model, making the heat spreader type least feasible compared with the other two. The temperature contours of the PV cell layer at a given operating condition showed uniform distribution for both flat plate types and combined types. In contrast, the fin-only heatsink configuration illustrated hotspots within the PV cell layer.