Numerical study for concentrated photovoltaic performance at low concentration ratio

Abstract EN

Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) is an alternative technique used to convert thesolar energy to electrical energy.

CPV is used in lieu of the photovoltaic system(PV) due to its smaller semiconductor area and consequently lower cost.

Thestudy of fluid flow and thermal characteristics for a CPV integrated with a threedimensional (3D) rectangular shaped microchannel heat sink (MCHS) isnumerically investigated.

Laminar and steady flow of water as a coolant is used atthe present study.

The flow and thermal fields are analyzed using four channelnumber (N) (26, 52, 78 and 104), concentration ratio (CR) from 1 to 20 andReynolds number (Re) from 100 to 1000.

The evaluating parameters such astemperature, the electrical efficiency and the electrical power are obtained fromthe simulation.

Results show that increasing the channel number over N equals 52leads to a slight decrease in the cell temperature while the design of 26 channelsachieves less cell temperature.

As the concentration ratio increases, the cellefficiency decreases due to increase of the temperature while the electrical powerincreases.

Increasing Re provides a negligible enhancement in the cell efficiencyand consequently a slight increase in the electric power.