Experimental Investigation of the Photovoltaic Performance Using Porous Media based Cooling System

Shata, Maha; .Aboelsoud, W; I. Marei, Mostafa

doi:10.21608/erjsh.2020.229908

Experimental Investigation of the Photovoltaic Performance Using Porous Media based Cooling System

Document Type : Research articles

Authors

¹ Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

² Electric Power and Machines Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

10.21608/erjsh.2020.229908

Abstract

Cooling photovoltaic panels (PV) is considered one of the most important ways to enhance its performance. Photons with wavelength above the threshold are converted into heat in the PV cells. The ambient temperature acts a key base in the photovoltaic conversion process, where the output power decreases with increasing the temperature than the ambient temperature. In this study, experiment is conducted to study the cooling effect of using a porous material on the electrical performance. The temperature of the front surface of the PV panel is measured at the twenty-eight points without cooling and with cooling. It is found that the temperature decreases when compared to PV panel without cooling. The maximum decrease in the temperature is 9.8%. In addition, the electric current of the PV increases with cooling. The maximum increase of the measured electric current is 16.4 % at a specific voltage, 19.6V. Furthermore, the maximum gain of the output power is about 15 %.

Keywords