Different types of cooling systems used in photovoltaic module solar system: A review

Solar energy is an important part of the renewable energy. Photovoltaic (PV) cell converts a part of solar energy into electrical energy and remainder is converted into heat. This heat inversely affects the efficiency of the solar cell. The efficiency of solar panel depends upon three factors: the intensity of the solar radiation flux, the quality of the semiconductor used and the operating temperature of the semiconductor cell. It is known that efficiency of the photovoltaic cell decreases on increasing the temperature of PV cell. To maintain the temperature of the PV cell, incorporation of a cooling system is required. Proposed review gives a comparative account of different types of cooling systems incorporated like air based cooling system, liquid based cooling system, heat pipe based cooling system, PCM (Phase Changed Material) based cooling system etc. While reviewing the cooling techniques water based cooling system was found to be the most efficient system efficiency (up to 35%) presided by PCM based and the least efficient was found to be air based cooling. Present review also defines the utility and importance of optimization technique, which predicts the more optimum values of cooling systems. This is an innovative approach in the field of photovoltaics cooling system which gives optimum (maximum values and minimum values) values for prescribed parameter using optimization technique.