Analysis of the air-flow at photovoltaic modules for cooling purposes

Abstract

The efficiency of photovoltaic modules and their performance depends on the value of irradiation and on the temperature of the module. The temperature of the modules can be reduced with the suitable set-up of the modules giving an opportunity to the natural (buoyancy driven) flows for cooling the PV modules. Present work is aimed at defining the heat transfer coefficients of the modules, using the methods of the computational fluid dynamics. The heat transfer coefficients are defined at the typical placements of modules and in the case of average wind speeds typical in Hungary. Such values could be used to define the accurate working temperature.