Optimal Position of Two Fans Cooling a Large PV Panel

Abstract

To overcome the negative effect of the rise in temperature of photovoltaic (PV) panel on its performance, cooling is used. However, this cooling must be as homogeneous as possible. Indeed, the uniform cooling of a photovoltaic (PV) panel is important to maintain its conversion efficiency at a high level. In this work, a cooling system is proposed using two fans that blow ambient air onto the backside of the PV panel. Several configurations of fans positions (air inlets) and air outlets are studied by simulations in order to optimize the cooling system and to achieve a uniform temperature distribution on the PV panel. On a typical summer day with an optimal air flow rate of 200g/s, the optimized cooling system reduces the temperature of the PV panel by 21.66°C and improves its conversion efficiency by about 8.85%. In the absence or at low wind speeds, these values can reach 35.84°C and 16.5%.

Keywords

• Cooling
• efficiency
• Fan
• Homogenization
• Temperature field
• Photovoltaic panel.

References

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