CFD Analysis of Cold Plate Heat Exchangers for Solar Panels

The objective of the research is to enhance the efficiency of a solar panel by introducing new designs of cold plate heat exchangers for cooling solar panels. V-Ribs and Fins type cold plate heat exchanger designs are proposed, with the dimensions of a conventional channel cold plate, which is generally used in real life for cooling solar panels. A series of numerical investigations were performed on the conventional V-Ribs and Fins design of cold plates for comparison. In terms of many parameters, the results indicated that both new designs outperformed the conventional design. The Fins design gave the lowest average PV cell temperature of 21 °C and the highest electrical efficiency of 15.15% when compared to the other two designs for varying mass flow rates and solar irradiation. At lower mass flow rates, Fins design gave a higher thermal efficiency of 62%. But at higher flow rates, V-Ribs gave a higher value of thermal efficiency of 81%. The total efficiency was found to be better for the V-Ribs design compared to the Fins design by 9% at higher mass flow rates that are above 0.006 kg/s. For lower mass flow rates, Fins design gave a higher total efficiency by 19% taking the heat flux value constant at 1000 W/m2.