Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Photovoltaic Systems Cooling with Binary Mixture Spray

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to achieve more effective and faster cooling by using a binary mixture (water-ethanol) in spray cooling in order to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic systems. The panel cell temperature efficient working range of photovoltaic systems can be defined as 25 °C – 45 °C. In this experimental study, when the panel cell temperature exceeds 45 °C at 1000 W/m2 radiation, spray cooling was performed until it was reduced to 25 °C. In the cooling process, faster cooling was achieved by using 15%, 30% and 45% ethanol in the binary mixture. DXD-HSİ-6 nozzle was used at different liquid and air flow rates in the spray cooling experiment setup and ALR (air-liquid ratio) was calculated. At the same time, CFD analysis of the cooling process was performed with the help of ANSYS-Fluent software and compared with the experimental results. In the spray cooling process of the photovoltaic system with binary mixture, the effect of ethanol on cooling was investigated in all experiments. The fastest cooling was achieved at a liquid flow rate of 800 ml/min and an air flow of 4.5 m3 /h. In the cooling process with pure water, it has been observed that the panel cell temperature can be reduced below 25 °C by applying a 100-second spray, and when 45% ethanol is added, the time is reduced to 75 seconds by cooling 25% faster.

Keywords

• Spray cooling
• atomization
• Photovoltaic system
• binary mixture
• ethanol

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