Title: A simple procedure to study the performance of individual solar cells in a linear concentrating photovoltaic/thermal integrated system

Authors: Ganesan Vishwanath; Marta Vivar; Naveen Kumar; Raja Balakrishnan

Addresses: Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram, Chennai 600048, India ' IMDEA Water, Alcalá de Henares, 28805, Spain ' Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram, Chennai 600048, India ' Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram, Chennai 600048, India

Abstract: Performance analysis of photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) integrated systems has drawn considerable interest among the researchers throughout the world. Recent publications on PV/T integrated systems, focussing mostly on the efficiency of a PV module, emphasise the need for studying the performance of individual solar cells within the module. In the present paper, the effects of temperature and water mass flow rate on both the system energy and exergy efficiencies are studied by illustrating the variation in individual solar cell temperature and its corresponding water temperature along the length of the module for multiple receiver configurations connected in series. For the system, it is found that, for a water temperature rise of 5°C and 50°C with water flowing at a rate of 0.0425kg/s at an inlet water temperature of 25°C, the solar cell electrical efficiency decreases by 0.4% and 3.7% respectively with respect to its rated efficiency of 16.8%, at 25%.

Keywords: photovoltaic-thermal integrated systems; solar cell temperature; PV module efficiency; thermal efficiency; exergy analysis; exergy efficiency; solar cells; solar energy; solar power; solar cell performance; performance evaluation; water temperature; water mass flow rate.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRET.2016.080117

International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology, 2016 Vol.7 No.4, pp.309 - 335

Received: 21 Jun 2015
Accepted: 20 Jul 2016
Published online: 02 Nov 2016 *

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