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Proceedings of CHT-12. ICHMT International Symposium on Advances in Computational Heat Transfer.
July, 1-6, 2012, Bath, England

DOI: 10.1615/ICHMT.2012.CHT-12


ISBN: 978-1-56700-303-1

ISSN: 2578-5486

INFLUENCE OF THERMAL BEHAVIOUR OF A PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULE ON ITS ELECTRICAL PERFORMANCE

pages 515-533
DOI: 10.1615/ICHMT.2012.CHT-12.320
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ABSTRACT

Photovoltaic (PV) energy is considered as one of the most promising ways to reduce environmental impact of electricity production. The success of an energy source depends on its global cost. Recent years have seen a huge reduction of the cost/performance ratio of PV due to political, economical and research efforts. For the latter case, which represents the scientific level, efforts lead to improvements of devices’ efficiency.
Research on the PV modules can bring new solutions for the improvement of PV performance. However, different effects also lead to a reduction of PV performance: first optical effects due to encapsulation, second electrical effects due to inter-connection of the cells into the module, third thermal effects when the module is functioning, also additional consumable costs can be considered a fourth effect since the global cost is the final measurement value of performance. A complete understanding of the influence degree of these different effects is needed in order to increase.
This work is intended to evaluate the effect of heat transfer on PV performance. This approach allows a desired optimization of all parameters. Within this frame, we developed a physical and numerical model, which resolves optical, electrical and heat transfer problems involved in the PV module. The module is composed of a solar cell encapsulated into Ethyl Vinyl Acetate (EVA) with a protecting glass as frontsheet and a protecting polymer as backsheet. Input elements are environmental boundary conditions (illumination, wind speed, ambient temperature) and output factors are temperature of the solar module and power of the module. This approach has the advantage of providing information in order to optimize materials and strategy for PV modules’ construction. Through a simple optimisation of material parameters, an increase of performance of 1.8% was obtained compared to standard technology.

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