Simulation and testing of Cell Operating Temperature in structured single and double glass modules

Author

Li, Biao ; Christian, Theresa ; Koch, Matthias ; Muller, Matt ; Rodriguez, Jose ; Doble, Dan M J

Author_Institution

Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Syst., Cambridge, MA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

19-24 June 2011

Abstract

Computational modeling has been used to simulate Nominal Cell Operating Temperature (NOCT) and cooling effects in standard and glass-glass modules with different surface structures. The results of the simulation agree well with outdoor experimental data. It has been demonstrated that surface structure has a significant cooling effect, increasingly pronounced at higher wind speed. In addition, the cooling effect in textured double glass modules is greater than that in textured single glass modules due to the increase in surface area of both front and back surfaces. An expression that predicts the temperature of glass-glass and textured glass modules relative to a single flat glass module has been evaluated. The result can be directly applied to existing NOCT models.

Keywords

cooling; finite element analysis; glass structure; solar cells; surface structure; FEA modeling; NOCT model; cell operating temperature simulation; cell operating temperature testing; computational modeling; cooling effect; glass-glass modules; nominal cell operating temperature; single-flat-glass module; structured double-glass module; structured single-glass module; surface structures; textured glass modules; Cooling; Glass; Heat transfer; Periodic structures; Surface texture; Temperature measurement; Wind speed;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2011 37th IEEE

Conference_Location

Seattle, WA

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9966-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2011.6186618

Filename

6186618