The effect of a reversed circular jet impingement on A bifacial module PVT collector energy performance

Abstract

Photovoltaic thermal (PVT) technologies have a significant downside in addition to their numerous advantages. PVT technologies are constrained by the fact that its photovoltaic module gains heat due to exposure to solar irradiance, which reduces the photovoltaic efficiency. Jet impingement is one of the most effective methods to cool a photovoltaic module. An indoor experiment using a solar simulator was conducted on a bifacial PVT solar collector cooled by a reversed circular flow jet impingement (RCFJI) to evaluate the energy performance of the PVT collector. The study was conducted under a constant solar irradiance of 900W/m2 and flowrate (mass) ranging from 0.01 to 0.14kg/s. Three bifacial modules with 0.22, 0.33, and 0.66 packing factors were mounted 25mm above the RCFJI for cooling. The 0.66 packing factor module recorded the highest photovoltaic efficiency of 10.91 % at 0.14kg/s flowrate (mass). Meanwhile, the 0.22 and 0.33 packing factors recorded a photovoltaic efficiency of 4.50 % and 6.45 %, respectively. The highest thermal efficiency recorded under the same operating condition was 61.43 %, using a 0.66 packing factor. Overall, the highest combined photovoltaic thermal (PVT) efficiency for 0.22, 0.33, and 0.66 was 56.62 %, 61.88 %, and 72.35 %, respectively.