Development of water-cooling system for enhancing the efficiency of solar photovoltaic panel

Abstract

The solar photovoltaic module converts solar energy into electrical energy. It converts only 5-15% of incoming solar radiation into electricity and the remaining more than 80% of solar radiation either gets reflected into the atmosphere or dissipated into the solar photovoltaic module in the form of thermal energy. Elevated module temperature reduces the electrical efficiency of modules. Keeping in view to enhance the efficiency of a solar photovoltaic module, a water cooling system for the photovoltaic module was developed which is fixed at the rear side of the module. The developed system generates both electric energy and thermal energy. The experimental results like electrical efficiency of photovoltaic module, thermal and combined efficiency at a constant mass flow rate were obtained under the climatic condition of Udaipur, Rajasthan. The results at water mass flow rate of 0.0056 kg/s and average solar radiation of 540.82 W/m2, significant improvement in the efficiency of a photovoltaic module by 7.38% with a thermal and combined efficiency of 53.28% and 66.47%.