A heat pipe photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid system and its performance evaluation
Wu, S., Zhang, Q., Xiao, L. and Guo, F.
2011 Energy and Buildings, 43(12): 3558-3567
Wu, S., Zhang, Q., Xiao, L. and Guo, F., (2011), "A heat pipe photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid system and its performance evaluation", Energy and Buildings, 43(12): 3558-3567.
Abstract:
Building-integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) system has been considered as an attractive technology for building integration. The main part of a BIPV/T system is PV/T collector. In order to solve the non-uniform cooling of solar PV cells and control the operating temperature of solar PV cells conveniently, a heat pipe photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid system (collector) has been proposed and described by selecting a wick heat pipe to absorb isothermally the excessive heat from solar PV cells. A theoretical model in terms of heat transfer process analysis in PV module panel and introducing the effectiveness¨Cnumber of transfer unit (?¨CNTU) method in heat exchanger design was developed to predict the overall thermal¨Celectrical conversion performances of the heat pipe PV/T system. A detailed parametric investigation by varying relevant parameters, i.e., inlet water temperature, water mass flow rate, packing factor of solar cell and heat loss coefficient has been carried out on the basis of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Results show that the overall thermal, electrical and exergy efficiencies of the heat pipe PV/T hybrid system corresponding to 63.65%, 8.45% and 10.26%, respectively can be achieved under the operating conditions presented in this paper. The varying range of operating temperature for solar cell on the absorber plate is less than 2.5 ¡ãC. The heat pipe PV/T hybrid system is viable and exhibits the potential and competitiveness over the other conventional BIPV/T systems.
