TY - JOUR
TI - MODELING OF A SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC WATER PUMPING SYSTEM UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF PANEL COOLING
AU - Chinathambi Gopal
AU - Murugesan Mohanraj
AU - Palanisamy Chandramohan
AU - Munirajan Sakthivel
AU - Bhero Shepherd
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2017
VL - 21
IS - 12
SP - 399
EP - 410
PT - Article
AB - In this paper, the performance of a solar photovoltaic water pumping system was improved by maintaining the cell temperature in the range between 30 °C and 40 °C. Experiments have been conducted on a laboratory experimental set-up in-stalled with 6.4 m2 solar panel (by providing air cooling either on the top surface or over the beneath surface of the panel) to operate a centrifugal pump with a rat-ed capacity of 0.5 HP. The performance characteristics of the photovoltaic panel (such as, cell temperature, photovoltaic panel output, and photovoltaic efficiency), pump performance characteristics (such as pump efficiency and discharge), and system performance characteristics are observed with reference to solar irradiation, ambient temperature and wind velocity. A thermal model has been developed to predict the variations of photovoltaic cell temperature based on the measured glass and tedlar temperatures. The influences of cell temperature and solar irradiation on the performance of the system are described. The results concluded that cooling of photovoltaic panel on beneath surface has maintained the cell temperature in the range between 30 °C and 40 °C and improved the overall efficiency by about 1.8% when compared to the system without panel cooling.