Investigation of Mono-Crystalline Photovoltaic Active Cooling Thermal System for Hot Climate of Pakistan

Abstract

Climate change is causing adverse and diverse effects on human beings in term of severe diseases, melting of ice, and increase temperatures, which are directly linked to the consumption of traditional fossil fuels. These fuels can only be replaced by exploring renewable energy technologies, and photovoltaic solar modules are the most promising choice among them. This paper investigates electrical output in term of efficiency and power of a monocrystalline photovoltaic module under climatic conditions of Lahore, Pakistan in an effort to enhance electrical performance based on laminar and turbulent flow boundary conditions. A computational model of a PV module was designed and investigated, when the solar irradiance was observed to be maximum at 920.64 W/m2. Initially, the total flux received and absorbed by PV module was observed to be at 179.37 W/m2 after ray tracing analysis in Trace Pro; thereafter, the module’s temperature increased to 65.86 °C, causing an electrical efficiency drops to 15.65% from 19.40% without applying active cooling schemes. A coupling of Ansys Fluent and Steady State Thermal Analysis was performed for thermal management of a PV module by selecting water and air as a coolant at inlet temperature of 25 °C through microchannels contingent upon varying Reynolds numbers. The results maintained that the optimum coolant outlet temperature (49.86 °C), average PV cell’s layer temperature (32.42 °C), and temperature uniformity (4.16 °C) are achieved by water at 224, 6710, and 4200 Reynolds numbers respectively. In addition, again water maintained 18.65% of electrical efficiency and 33.65 W power output at 6710 Reynolds number. On the other hand, air-based cooling lagged behind water by 14% in term of efficiency and power output at maximum Reynolds number (6710).