Abstract

Abstract
Solar energy is the most promising resource among all other renewable energy, because of its
inexhaustible supply, environmental friendly notion and options for harnessing the energy
directly from the Sun. Solar energy may be harvested as thermal energy by solar thermal
collector (STC) as well as electrical energy through solar photovoltaic (PV) module. Hybrid
photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) module is combination both of these solar thermal and PV which
is a well engineered solar co-generation system in one physical profile. One of the major
shortcomings of PV technology is its poor energy conversion efficiency; commercially
available solar cells have efficiency from 4 to 17%. Hybrid photovoltaic thermal systems
consist of a photovoltaic panel connected to a thermal collector. The main objective of this
thesis is to find the optimal operating conditions that can be controlled to decrease the
photovoltaic panel temperature in order to improve the electrical and thermal performance of
PV/T systems. In this work, we proposed the 3D numerical model that is implemented within
the COMSOL Multiphysics program to study the PV/T system. The experimental input data
being used in this research study reflects a typical Algerian area with semi-humid climate
conditions. We study the effect of water velocity, pipe length, diameter, thickness and inlet
fluid temperature on the electrical and thermal perfor- mance using the design of experiments
(DOE) method. Further, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to identify which of these
effects impact the most the photovoltaic thermal and electrical efficiencies, the response surface methodology (RSM) is employed to describe how these effects are interacting. Based on ANOVA analysis, the following factors are reported to be important: water velocity, pipe
diameter, pipe length and the inlet fluid temperature. Further, there is a significant interactions
between water velocity, pipe length and pipe diameter. Among the operating conditions being
calculated using the RSM, the optimal one is found when water velocity, pipe length, pipe
diameter, pipe thickness and inlet water temperature have the following values, 0.05 m/s, 7.27
m, 0.01 m, 0.0008 m and 10°C, respectively. The corresponding thermal, electrical and overall efficiency were found around 80.73%, 12.87% and 93.60%, respectively. The proposed simulation model provides a reliable framework to study, improve and predict PV/T systems performance whilst ensuring low computational time.

Information

Item Type:	Thesis
Divisions:	» Faculty of Science and Technology
ePrint ID:	4378
Date Deposited:	2023-09-03
Further Information:	Google Scholar
URI:	https://www.univ-soukahras.dz/en/publication/article/4378

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