Review on energy and exergy analysis of air and water based photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collector

Abstract

Hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) collector has been developed by combining photovoltaic (PV) technology and solar thermal collector in one module. The combination of two technologies in the same module has the potential to reduce cost of materials and the required space also improves performance of collectors. The hybrid PVT collectors were designed to generate electrical and thermal energy simultaneously. PV technology converts solar radiation into electrical energy while solar thermal collector will be converting solar energy to thermal energy. The main components of PVT collectors are PV panel, absorber plate, working fluid and insulator. According to the previous research, PVT collectors were developed by using air and water as a heat transfer medium. The benefits of heat removal are increasing PV panel efficiency by removing excessive heat from module. Parameters affecting the overall performances of PVT collectors included mass flow rate, area of collector, irradiance and PV cell materials. This paper presents a review of energy and exergy analysis of air-based and water-based PVT collector with different designs. The performances of PVT collectors were studied using First Law and Second Law of Thermodynamics. This study has found that generally the energy and exergy efficiency are range from 40%-70% and 5%-25%, respectively.