Energy, Exergy, Economic, Environmental, Exergoenvironmental, Exergoeconomic, and Enviroeconomic Analysis of Photovoltaic/Thermal System with Double-Fan Arrangement for Effective Condensation and Evaporation: An Experimental Approach

Abstract

Water is one of the basic needs for all living and nonliving things. It is important to sustain the available water resources effectively for future generations. A lot of studies are employed already to improve the performance of solar desalination systems rather than conventional methods. Subsequently, an experimental approach is proposed with energy, exergy, economic, environmental, exergoenvironmental, exergoeconomic, and enviroeconomic performance of photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) solar distillation system using two methods to enhance the fresh water yield production at feasible cost. First is the conventional solar still (CSS) with PV and second is PV with double fan solar still (DFSS) with optimized running time of the double fan, which increases the productivity of the solar distillation system. The results show that average daily energy and exergy efficiency of the system improve with DFSS (19.98%, 1.36%) than CSS (11.74%, 0.36%). The daily yield productivity of CSS is 1.618 L m−2 and is increased as 2.482 L m−2 with DFSS. Average cost of water yield production is also reduced with DFSS and estimated as 0.018$, 0.016$, and 0.015$ for the lifetime of 15, 20, and 30 years for CSS and 0.014, 0.013, and 0.012$ for DFSS. Overall, the proposed methodology shows promising results than the conventional approach.