A Passive Approach to Cooling Photovoltaic Devices by Utilizing Pin Fins

Photovoltaic panels’ performance is degraded when their temperature rises above 25 . Various cooling methods are proposed to deal with this issue. In this study pin fin cooling is introduced as a simple and cost-effective passive cooling technique to cool a 10 (W) monocrystalline photovoltaic module. Indoor experimental tests have been conducted to investigate the module’s thermal and electrical performance. Based on the radiation intensity, module’s tilt angle, pin fin numbers, and pin fin arrangements, four categories are defined and extensively studied. The obtained results reveal that adding pin fins can reduce the module’s temperature up to nearly 10 . More interestingly, by inclining the bare photovoltaic module from a horizontal state to a 45-degree inclination angle the module’s average temperature is reduced by 6 . This temperature reduction is about 15  if the PV module is inclined by 45 degrees and also attached by 100 pin fins. Based on the experimental findings, the change in the pin fins’ arrangement did not show a sensible change in either thermal or electrical performance of the photovoltaic device.