An experimental study of the effect of converging channel heat exchanger on PV system

An experimental performance evaluation of a cooling technique called as converging channel cooling intended to achieve low and uniform temperature on the surface of PV panel is presented in this paper. Experimental performance was investigated in the climate of Dhahran for an uncooled PV system and a converging channel cooled PV system to observe the behavior of thermal and electrical characteristics. Temperature distribution for different converging angles were investigated using CFD software FLUENT. Based on standard deviation of temperature profile, two degree angle was selected for converging channel heat exchanger. The temperature distribution for cooled PV showed an approximate uniform temperature profile with the average cell temperature reduction from 71°C to 45.2°C. The overall performance of PV system was found to be sensitive to the thermal characteristics. By employing converging cooling, a significant decrease in the cell temperature of 25.8°C was achieved. The maximum power output increased from 11.9 W to 16.2W using converging cooling mechanism. Thus, the proposed cooling system could be employed in the extreme climatic conditions for proper operation at low cell temperature with uniform temperature distribution.