Development of a Cooling System for a Concentrating Photovoltaic Module

In this paper, a cooling system that includes a heat spreader and a natural convective heat sink is proposed for the cooling of a concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) module. The heat spreader and the natural convective heat sink are designed on the basis of previous analytical investigations. In order to evaluate the proposed cooling system, we conducted experimental investigations varying the heat rate and the inclined angle of the cooling system. From the experimental results, it is found that the proposed cooling system satisfies the design constraints for good operation of the CPV module. Finally, a correlation is suggested for estimating the effects of the heat rate and the inclined angle on the thermal performance of the natural convective heat sink is suggested.