Study of PV Systems using Fin Augmentation in real outdoor condition

With the dawning of a new era of unconventional sources of energy generation, several modifications in the existing technologies to better their performance, and hence the ergonomic and economic desirability, is a prerequisite in ensuring the technology doesn't become obsolete. Although solar photovoltaic technology faces no such immediate threat, its low conversion in the face of more technologically promising technologies may deter a consumers will to invest in PV technology. An effort is made to tackle one deterrent causing lower conversion efficiency in this research work, namely module temperature. A finned cooling system is fabricated to dissipate the excess heat away from the module thus aiming at subdue module temperature. The designed cooling system is augmented to the rear of one PV module and the modules are evaluated for their performance in outdoor real time conditions. The results are plotted for days with varying solar radiation i.e. sunny days, partially cloudy days and days with full cloud cover. The results obtained highlight the cumulative effect various uncontrollable parameters have on the output of the modules. With implementation of a finned cooling system, a decrement in the power coefficient of PV module is reduced from 0.27 to 0.16. Due to this variation in the temperature coefficient, there is a mean increase of 5.47% observed in the module efficiency and consequently overall gain in the energy yield from the module.