Energy and exergy performance evaluation of a typical solar photovoltaic module

Abstract

This paper presents the energy and exergy performance evaluation of heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer solar photovoltaic module for a particular day of different months of the year of a typical climatic zone of north India. The energy, exergy, and power conversion efficiencies have been calculated and plotted against time based on hourly insolation. The variation in all the efficiencies has been observed with respect to variation in solar radiation and wind speed and found that all the efficiencies are higher in morning and evening time as compared to noon time which is due to the variation in temperature of module throughout the day. Performance of solar photovoltaic module has been found to be the best in the month of February i.e. all the three efficiencies have been found to be the highest among all the months analysed and presented in the study for the month of February. The energy efficiency is found to be always higher than that power conversion and exergy efficiencies. However, exergy efficiency in some months like February, May, June, September, October, and December has been found to be higher than that of power conversion efficiency, reverse is found in rest of the months.