Toward an Optimum Design of an Amorphous Silicon Photovoltaic/Thermal System: Simulation and Experiments

  • REN Xiao ,
  • LI Jing ,
  • LIU Weixin ,
  • ZHU Chuanyong ,
  • PEI Gang ,
  • GONG Liang
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  • 1. College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
    2. Research Center for Sustainable Energy Technologies, Energy and Environment Institute, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK
    3. Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

Online published: 2023-11-22

Supported by

The study was sponsored by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2022M713463), National Natural Science Foundation of China (52206292), and the EU Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships Program (703746), and the Major Program of the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2019ZD11).

Copyright

Science Press, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, CAS and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023

Abstract

Amorphous silicon photovoltaic/thermal (a-Si-PV/T) technology is promising due to the low power temperature coefficient, thin-film property, thermal annealing effect of the solar cells, and high conversion efficiency in summer. The design of a-Si-PV/T system is influenced by a number of thermodynamic, structural, and external parameters. Parametric analysis is useful for a good design of the system. A dynamic distributed parameter model is built and verified in this paper. Outdoor tests are carried out. The impacts of operating temperature, mass flow rate, cover ratio of solar cells, heat transfer area, and frame shadow ratio on its performance are theoretically and experimentally investigated. The results indicate that seven or eight copper tubes are suitable to achieve a high overall efficiency of the a-Si-PV/T system. The frame and tilt angle shall avoid a shadow ratio of more than 8.3% during operation. The difference between power outputs at operating temperatures of 35°C and 55°C in the first month is about 0.21% while it drops to less than 0.1% in the twelfth month. Compared with conventional PVT systems, the a-Si-PV/T system benefits from a higher design temperature with a minor efficiency decrement.

Cite this article

REN Xiao , LI Jing , LIU Weixin , ZHU Chuanyong , PEI Gang , GONG Liang . Toward an Optimum Design of an Amorphous Silicon Photovoltaic/Thermal System: Simulation and Experiments[J]. Journal of Thermal Science, 2023 , 32(3) : 947 -964 . DOI: 10.1007/s11630-023-1813-z

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