A study on cooling of concentrator photovoltaic cells using CFD

Author

Lee, S.S. ; Lai, S.O. ; Chong, K.K.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. & Mater. Eng., Univ. Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

fYear

2012

fDate

21-22 May 2012

Firstpage

403

Lastpage

406

Abstract

Cooling of concentrator photovoltaic cells under high concentration of solar irradiance is one of the major challenges in designing concentrating photovoltaic system (CPV). Apart from the reduction of solar-to-electrical conversion efficiency, the highly excessive thermal energy generated may degrade the CPV and result in permanent damages. In this project, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation has been performed to investigate the effects of different design parameters including inlet velocity, working fluid properties and cooling block geometry on thermal performance of the cooling system.

Keywords

computational fluid dynamics; cooling; solar cells; solar energy concentrators; CFD simulation; CPV; computational fluid dynamic simulation; concentrating photovoltaic system; concentrator photovoltaic cell; cooling block geometry; inlet velocity; solar irradiance concentration; solar-to-electrical conversion efficiency; thermal energy generation; working fluid property; Computational fluid dynamics; Computational modeling; Heat sinks; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaic systems; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Concentrator Photovoltaic Cells; Cooling;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Innovation Management and Technology Research (ICIMTR), 2012 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Malacca

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0655-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICIMTR.2012.6236427

Filename

6236427