Experimental investigation of photovoltaic modules cooling system

Abstract

The electrical efficiency of Photovoltaic (PV) cell depends on its operating temperature during absorption of solar radiation. It is well known that the power and efficiency of PV module usually falls at the rate of ∼0.5%/°C and ∼0.05%/°C respectively as increase of ambient temperature. A solar system was designed, fabricated and experimentally investigated in this work. To actively cool the PV module, a DC brushless fan with inlet/outlet manifold designed for uniform airflow distribution was attached at the back of the PV module. Experiments were performed with and without active cooling. In this study, the open-circuit voltage (Voc) of PV module, Voc and every change of temperature on PV module were measured and recorded using Midi Logger GL220. The characteristic of solar irradiance is recorded per minutes for a month using Davis Vantage Pro2 Weather Station. In the end, method to attach DC brushless fan to the backside of PV module is discussed. This work shows the comparison between a PV module with and without DC brushless fan.