The Study Of Cooling Effect On Photovoltaic Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Ghazali, Ahmad Syakir (2019) The Study Of Cooling Effect On Photovoltaic Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Project Report. Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Melaka, Malaysia. (Submitted)

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Abstract

The temperature of photovoltaic (PV) panels is an important parameter in the conversion efficiency of solar radiation to electricity. PV cells generally can convert up to 20% of solar radiation to electricity and the rest is generated into heat which increases the panel temperature causing a drop in the performance. Various methods have been used by researches in order to reduce the panel temperature and still being cost effective. One of the cost-effective methods is by using natural convection. The purpose of this study is to study the cooling effect on solar PV by using ANSYS CFD simulation. The solar panel is simulated under two different condition where it is assumed there’s no cooling with constant ambient temperature and the other one with air cooling with vary ambient temperature. The simulation is analyzed under transient state to simulate the PV performance during 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in real time. The results show that the maximum efficiency of panel with air cooling is 15.90% while the panel with no cooling is 14.33% thus making the panel more efficient and productive when being cooled. It was shown that the presence of natural convection would reduce the temperature and increase the efficiency of PV. However, this would require a higher wind velocity for a better result as seen from the result obtained when the air velocity ranges between 2 m/s to 5 m/s.

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