Enhanced efficiency of a solar photovoltaic concentration system cooled by a pulsed air

Within the study of the behavior of a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel under different solar radiations intensities this investigation is devoted to the enhancement of the PV panel when combined with a cooling system into the functioning cycle. As a first step, a one-diode electrical model is used to evaluate, under fixed radiation and temperature, the potential, the amperage, the power and the performance of a monocristalline silicon PV. In a second step, the temperature of the PV panel is determined by a balance energy which includes convective heat exchanges with long and short wave radiations. The final and main step considers the whole behavior of the PV panel along the variations of the amplitude radiations in order to overcome the negative aspects occurring from the loss of solar energy which leads to heat the solar panel and thereby to limit its performance. As a matter of fact, only a small portion of the total solar incident radiation is transformed into electricity. In fact, a large part is evacuated by convection and radiation towards the ambient air and the sky while the rest is absorbed by the PV panel which is then warming. In particular, at high solar energy incidents combined to the high air temperature with no wind, an excessive value of the PV panel temperature is produced which then decreases significantly its efficiency. To overcome this point, the PV panel is cooled by the ambient air pulsed from a fan activated by a part of the electrical energy delivered by the panel. We highlight that, under 2000W.m-2 solar radiation and 50°C air temperature with no wind, a cooling system allows a good compromise between the maximum power generated by the PV and the part used to activate the fan leading to an increase of the PV panel efficiency around 71%.