TY - JOUR TI - Thermal design of a plate receiver for cooling densely packed photovoltaic cells with a point focusing solar concentrator AU - Du Wenping AU - Wang Rui AU - Zhao Chong AU - Wang Yunfeng AU - Li Ming JN - Thermal Science PY - 2018 VL - 22 IS - 12 SP - 469 EP - 479 PT - Article AB - The viability of a plate receiver for an array of densely packed photovoltaic cells with a point focusing solar concentrator has been investigated. A cooling receiver being similar to a multi-channel receiver was designed and a thermal resistance model was developed to optimize the geometric parameters. Furthermore, the simulation results found that when the receiver fin height, channel width, and width of the fin wall is 15, 1, and 5.8 mm, respectively, the total ther- mal resistance could be less than 4 cm2°C/W under a constant volumetric flow rate of 0.1 L/s. A physical prototype has been built according to the simulation results. A performance test has been conducted to investigate the temperature distribution and the thermal performance. The experimental results reveal that the new design of the plate receiver has a desirable working performance and it is acceptable for the cooling application of photovoltaic cells which expose to high heat fluxes.