Comparative study on the performance improvement of photovoltaic panel with passive cooling under natural ventilation

Abstract

Many researchers employed air or water for active cooling of PV to achieve higher electrical efficiency, but additional energy consumption for air or water circulation may reduce the net power output or even the PV power output could not afford the energy consumption. Therefore, this paper provided a study on the electrical performance improvement of PV panel with passive fin cooling under natural ventilation. Comparative experimental study on PV panels with and without fin cooling was carried out to investigate the effect of PV panel inclination, solar radiation, and ambient temperature as well as wind velocity on the electrical efficiency and power output. The study showed that there existed a PV inclination resulting in the minimum electrical efficiency and/or the maximum power output. Higher intensity of solar radiation led to lower PV electrical efficiency. The PV electrical efficiency decreased in linear with the increasing ambient temperature. Higher wind velocity led to better fin cooling and consequently better PV electrical performance. The average electrical efficiency of PV panel with fins was 0.3~1.8% higher than that of PV panel without fins and the average power output of PV panel with fins was 1.8~11.8% higher than that of PV panel without fins under various conditions in this study.