EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF HYBRID SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC THERMAL COLLECTOR

Abstract

World’s energy demand is mainly dependent on coal, oil and natural gas which are obtained from the fossil fuels. Energy demand is expected to increase by almost half over the next two decades. This will put us in a situation where energy resources starts to run out, which will cause problems for the global economy and quality of life. It is not possible to discover new oil and gas fields all the time. Ultimately, the near to unlimited supply potential of renewable energy resources ensure the world that it is not going to fall short of energy needs. Solar energy is one of such renewable energy source. Solar energy can generate electricity using solar photovoltaic systems and can provide thermal load by using flat plate collectors, parabolic troughs etc. Solar energy technology is growing rapidly and is promising to the energy demands. Electricity generation and heat generation are both separate technologies of solar energy. However, recently researches are conducted on a hybrid system which is known as hybrid solar photovoltaic thermal collector. A photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) collector is a solar collector which combines the thermal collectors and the photovoltaic (PV) modules to produce both heat and electricity simultaneously. Advantage of this technology is that it decreases the cell temperature which increases the cell efficiency and the hot fluid can be further used for domestic and industrial applications. Under the present dissertation work, an attempt has been made to conduct an experimental study in order to compare performance of a standard photovoltaic module with that of a hybrid solar photovoltaic module. In order to conduct the experimental study an experimental setup has been fabricated and solar radiations are simulated by constructing a filament box with halogen lights. Air is used as the heat transfer fluid. Experiments are conducted by varying the mass flow rate of air through the valve provided on the blower and characteristics of the photovoltaic module has been noted. It is found that by increasing the mass flow rate of air, the net percentage efficiency gain of the module is approximately 5% as compared to the conventional photovoltaic module. This technology is very promising and further work can be carried out under different operating conditions.