Experimental Study of Energy Conversion Efficiency Improvement of Photovoltaic (PV) Module using Hybrid Cooling System

The elevation of the photovoltaic module operating temperature resulting in diminution of its energy conversion efficiency is one of the key limitations to its application. A decrease of power delivered performance by 0.4-0.5% per 1 rise over its Standard Test Condition (STC) accounted for the overheating of the PV module. This study evaluates the energy conversion efficiency improvement of a PV module using hybrid cooling system. An hourly segmented hybrid cooling system made up of aluminum fins as passive cooling segment and helical structured copper tubules for water conduction as active cooling segment helps to improve the energy conversion efficiency performance of the PV module. A temperature reduction of 8.3 and an energy conversion efficiency improvement index of 3.87 were estimated for the hybrid cooled PV module over the reference PV module. The hybrid cooled techniques to the PV module significantly reduced the thermal stress effect at the PV module cell junctions and an improved energy conversion efficiency was obtained. The elevation of the photovoltaic module operating temperature resulting in diminution of its energy conversion efficiency is one of the key limitations to its application. A decrease of power delivered performance by 0.4-0.5% per 1 rise over its Standard Test Condition (STC) accounted for the overheating of the PV module. This study evaluates the energy conversion efficiency improvement of a PV module using hybrid cooling system. An hourly segmented hybrid cooling system made up of aluminum fins as passive cooling segment and helical structured copper tubules for water conduction as active cooling segment helps to improve the energy conversion efficiency performance of the PV module. A temperature reduction of 8.3 and an energy conversion efficiency improvement index of 3.87 were estimated for the hybrid cooled PV module over the reference PV module. The hybrid cooled techniques to the PV module significantly reduced the thermal stress effect at the PV module cell junctions and an improved energy conversion efficiency was obtained.