Abstract:
As the main drawback of a photovoltaic module is its high operating temperature, various designs for cooling the module are presented in this study. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software is used for simulating the presented models. In these models, water channels are placed above or below the panel to cool the module and heat the water at the same time. In two designs, aluminium fins are attached to the bottom side of the panel inside the water channel. The water outlet temperature, pressure drop and heat flux from the panel are calculated at various Reynolds numbers. The results show that as the Reynolds number increases, the heat flux and the pressure drop increase while the coolant average outlet temperature decreases. The highest amount of heat flux is obtained from Model A, which indicates that this model has a better cooling capacity than other models investigated in the study.
