Cooling photovoltaic panels with air convection – Parametric environmental and economic analysis with case studies

Photovoltaic (PV) panels generate electricity due to photoelectric effect, harvesting solar radiation from the sun. However, the hit of photons on the upper surface of the PV panel increases its temperature, and as a result, decreases its efficiency. The present work parametrically addresses the different economic and environmental aspects of cooling photovoltaic panels with air convection in free and forced convections for a house and a power plant. To proceed, a cluster of three different efficiency enhancements for three different cooling methods introduced in the literature have been considered and energy production, savings, and CO 2 emission reductions have been identified for the median value of each cluster for each cooling method, providing particular insights on PV application parametrically. The cooling methods retrieved from the literature and studied in the current investigation under the climatic condition of Lebanon were: forced convection PV (Forced-PV), free convection with finned plate PV (Free-Finned-PV), and forced convection with finned plate PV (Forced-Finned-PV). Results, multiplied by R, the ratio of application’s actual power consumption to the maximum PV power output, have shown that Forced-Finned-PV had the highest average energy enhancement, savings, and CO 2 reduction values of 569.09 × R kWh, $244.7 × R, and 330 × R kg respectively for the domestic house case, and 121045.81 × R kWh, $52049.69 × R, 70206.57 × R kg respectively for the power plant case. Results have also shown a payback period of 1.41 years, 1.32 years, and 1.21 years for the cases of forced convection with finned plate PV, free convection with finned plate, and forced convection PV respectively. Additionally, a direct linear relationship was noticed between the relative efficiency increase and the PV energy enhancement, savings increase, and CO 2 reduction, where during July month an average savings and CO 2 reduction of 23.51 $ / m 2 and 31.71 k g / m 2 were recorded respectively for an efficiency enhancement of 40%/.