THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Authors of this Paper

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Busiso Mtunzi

,

Edson L. Meyer

,

Simon Michael

THERMAL AND ELECTRICAL ENERGY YIELD ANALYSIS OF A DIRECTLY WATER COOLED PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULE

ABSTRACT
Electrical energy of photovoltaic (PV) modules drops by 0.5% for each degree increase in temperature. Direct water cooling of PV modules was found to give improved electrical and thermal yield. A prototype was put in place to analyse the field data for a period of a year. The results showed an initial high performance ratio and electrical power output. The monthly energy saving efficiency of the directly water cooled module was found to be approximately 61%. The solar utilisation of the naturally cooled PV module was found to be 8.79% and for the directly water cooled module its solar utilisation was 47.93%. Implementation of such systems on households may reduce the load from the utility company, bring about huge savings on electricity bills and help in reducing carbon emissions.
KEYWORDS
solar energy utilisation, performance ratio, thermal response
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2013-01-18
PAPER REVISED: 2013-09-17
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2013-10-27
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2013-11-16
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI130118144M
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2015, VOLUME 19, ISSUE Supplement 2, PAGES [S547 - S555]
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Thermal and electrical energy yield analysis of a directly water cooled photovoltaic module

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence