Abstract:
This thesis is an experimental investigation on the performance of a photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid solar collector, with an actual size used in standard system. Experiment revealed that the key performance variable of the PV/T is the temperature. This variable inversely is influence the efficiency of solar photovoltaic. The thesis aims at the study on the performance of PV/T with and without water heating system, which was constructed in the same unit of the solar PV panels. The important constraint that is the hot water produced from the proposed system can be used as a useful output.
The system used in this study was comprised of 105 amorphous silicon solar photovoltaic modules (total effective area of 105 m2) equipped with built-in solar water heating system. This system was located at a latitude of 14°2 N and longitude of 100°43 E, respectively. All of the collectors had a single glass cover and were tilted at 14° and facing due south. The test was conducted during the period of 09.00-17.00 hours along with ISO 9459-2 testing standard.
The experimental results revealed that the reduction of temperature, can improve the system efficiency, compared to the system without water cooling. Furthermore, the hot water from this cooling process can be used for other purpose. Therefore, the efficiency of the proposed system was also higher than the conventional solar photovoltaic system with the average values of 1.785 % and 1.618 %, respectively. It was concluded that the efficiency could be improved by means of cell temperature reduction. The appropriate water flow rate for the proposed system was 0.236 kg/s. The obtained maximum power and hot water temperature were 1.2 kW and 64 °C, respectively.