Impact of various cooling methods on photovoltaic performance: an experimental investigation

In this paper, three photovoltaic (PV) cooling systems are examined. The three cooling systems are (1) a PV frontside passive air (FPA) cooling system that relies on the chimney effect of air to cool the PV module, (2) a PV frontside active water (FAW) cooling where water flows in frontside of the PV panel, and (3) a PV backside active water (BAW) cooling system where water flows in a heatsink (collector) attached to the backside of the PV module. While comparing to the standalone PV, the FPA, FAW and BAW systems have cooled the PV surface temperature by 2.1, 22.4 and 17.8 °C, respectively. The FPA and BAW systems improved the PV electric efficiency by 0.84 and 6.86%, respectively; while, the FAW system degraded the PV efficiency by \(26.27\%\) $26.27\%$ . The spectrometer measurement showed that the plexiglass and water thickness significantly lower the transmission of ultraviolet and visible light waves to the PV module. In contrast, the FAW system produced water with higher thermal content than that of the BAW system. The results show that to maximize electrical power output, BAW system is recommended, while to maximize thermal energy collection, FAW system is recommended.