Prediction of Heat Transfer in a Hybrid Solar–Thermal–Photovoltaic Heat Exchanger Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Solar energy is one of the main renewable energy resources due to its abundance. It can be used for two purposes, thermal or photovoltaic applications. However, when the resource obtained is mixed, it is called photovoltaic thermal hybrid, where the solar panels generate electricity and are provided with a heat exchanger to absorb energy through a water flow. This is one of the techniques used by the scientific community to reduce the excess temperature generated by solar radiation in the cells, improving the electrical efficiency of photovoltaic systems and obtaining fluid with higher temperature. In this work, the thermal behavior of a heat exchanger equipped with fins in its interior to increase the thermal efficiency of the system was analyzed using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). The results showed that the average fluid outlet temperature was 75.31 °C, considering an incident irradiance of 1067 W/m2 and a fluid inlet temperature of 27 °C. The operating conditions were obtained from published experimental studies, achieving 97.7% similarity between the two. This was due to the boundary conditions of the heat flux (1067 W/m2) impinging directly on the coupled cells and the heat exchanger in a working area of 0.22 m2.