Thermoelectrical Analysis of a New Hybrid PV-Thermal Flat Plate Solar Collector

A practical design presented in this paper; a hybrid PV solar panel and flat plate solar air heating collector (HSC). When the PV solar cells are installed on the upper surface of the absorber plate at the entrance of air duct of the air heater solar collector, the system will generate both electricity and heat. Numerical model based on energy balance of a PV solar/thermal flat plate air heater solar collector (PV/T) has been developed. The analysis is aiming to identify the optimum contribution of the PV in the proposed HSC according to local transient energy behavior of the components of the HSC. The results substantiated the success of HSC technology in reducing the surface temperature of solar cells and increasing their productivity compared to a conventional PV solar panel. The optimum ratio of PV solar cell is found 25% of the total length of the HSC. Although the proposed HSC reduced the thermal efficiency of the solar collector from 42% to 39%, it increased the electrical efficiency of the PV solar cells from 11% to 14%. As a result, the overall efficiency of the proposed HSC was raised to 53%.