Experimental and Numerical Investigation of PV Panel Cooling Using Ribbed Fin Heat Exchanger and Hybrid Generation

The high temperature of photovoltaic panels represents the most prominent challenge to the possibility of increasing their efficiency. To eliminate excess heat, a PVT system is used with an efficient cooling system. The current study focuses on economic and easy new construction. The main objective of this study is to provide more information about the cooling effect on performance under certain operating conditions. This study involved initial numerical testing of five prototypes used to cool PV panels in a water-based system. The best model was chosen by considering the impact of cooling box geometry, heat flux variation, and coolant flow rate variation on performance. The problem was solved numerically in a 3D model using CFD technology via ANSYS R19.2 software. As for the experimental part, it includes two sections. The first represents the manufacturing of two models, one of which represents the basic model of a cooling box with non-ribbed fins (NRFCB), while the other represents the fifth model that was chosen according to the initial numerical test, which represents a cooling box with ribbed fins (RFCB). The second section consists of adding thermoelectric units (TEGs) to take advantage of the accumulated heat instead of dispersing it. The results showed good convergence between the two tests, with a deviation rate that did not exceed 7.58%. AThe experimental test results indicate that the PV panel cooled according to the RFCB model achieved an improvement over the NRFCB model of 0.77% and 1.26% under a heat flux of 400 and 1035 W/m2, 2 , respectively, at a water rate of 4 L/min. On the other hand, the addition of 8 TEG units achieved its highest power at 14:30, which reached 0.144 W during the day on July 15, 2023, in Kut, Iraq, with a water rate of 0.5 L/min.