Research on the Performance of Flat-Box Photovoltaic/Thermal Collector With Cooling Channels

Abstract

Photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collector is a novel collector which incorporates photovoltaic power generation and low-temperature heat utilization of solar energy. In this paper, a three-dimensional (3D) physical model of flat-box PV/T collector is established in the cfd software. The effects of different tube heights, flow rates, inlet temperature, wind speed, and ambient temperature were tested. By analyzing and comparing the simulated and experimental results, the relative errors of the thermal efficiency between the simulated and experimental values are smaller than those of the electric efficiency. According to the experiment, when the water flow is 210 L/h, the average outlet temperature is 37.598 °C, and the thermal and electric efficiencies are 52.524% and 10.064%, respectively.