Improve Efficiency of Photovoltaic/Thermal Systems using Porous Materials: An Experimental Study

The weak convection mechanism in photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) systems leads to numerous studies dealing with this problem. This study analyzes a new, affordable method to improve convection in PV/Ts and increase their thermal/electrical efficiency. The use of metallic porous materials with high thermal conductivity is a robust approach to increase the efficiency of PV/Ts by accelerating the cooling rate of PVs. In this study, the robust method is experimentally investigated, and the effectiveness of using porous materials to improve the efficiency of PV/Ts is evaluated. For this purpose, an experimental setup was fabricated, and two scenarios were investigated: a non-porous PV/T and a porous one in which steel wool was used as a porous material. The acquired results revealed that using steel wool reduces the PV temperature by 9.9 oC and increases the outlet temperature by 4.41 oC at the air flow rate of 0.17 kg/s. Lowering the PV temperature increases the electrical power generated while the electrical efficiency improves by nearly 11.18%. The higher outlet temperature causes a higher thermal efficiency; hence, using porous materials increases the thermal efficiency by 50.7%. In conclusion, using porous materials is a robust, affordable approach to improve the thermal/electrical efficiency of PV/Ts.

Improve Efficiency of Photovoltaic/Thermal Systems using Porous Materials: An Experimental Study Keywords:

Electrical Efficiency , Photovoltaic , Porous materials , Thermal efficiency , Thermal systems