A Passive Cooling System for Increasing Efficiency of Solar Panel Output

Abstract

Solar cell converts solar energy to electrical energy. As its surface is continuously exposed to sun, solar cell efficiency decreases about 0.5% for 1°C surface temperature increment. Passive active cooling systems have been proposed by researchers. Since active cooling system absorbs the generated current, this paper considers passive system as the cheapest one. The combination of water and heat-sink cooling system is proposed. The experimental implementation shows that the proposed system is able to reduce solar panel surface temperature better than the only water or the only heat-sink cooling system. The output voltage increases in average 21.49% for average surface temperature decrement of 12.66% compared to basic solar panel. This results significant output power improvement, by more than 40%.