Investigation of innovative cooling system for photovoltaic solar unit in existence of thermoelectric layer utilizing hybrid nanomaterial and Y-shaped fins

Perhaps the foremost issue of Photovoltaic (PV) cells is the lack of an enhanced cooling system and present work aims to offer a new configuration of system utilizing numerical approach. To increase electrical output, a new layer for thermoelectric has been added at the bottom of the Tedlar layer. The cooling system contains cooling ducts and confined jets and working fluid in both zones are hybrid nanofluid. The duct has been made with three shapes (circular, triangular and 3-lobed) and to enhance the convective rate, Y-shaped fins were installed within the ducts. Numerical method was applied for simulation of the present model which involves laminar flow in both fluid zones. Previous empirical and numerical data have been compared with outputs of present simulation and good accommodation proves that this code can be applied for present complex systems. Utilizing hybrid nanomaterial inside both zones instead of water makes the useful heat increase and cells become cooler. Regarding various configurations, the best performance has been reported for triangular duct equipped with fins and in existence of jet and its overall performance is 9.97% greater than that of circular pipe. Also, the amount of performance evaluation coefficient (PEC) for such a system is about 2.4 which means that such configuration has good hydrothermal performance. Considering the best case instead of a circular duct, the electrical and thermal performances enhance about 2.95% and 11.34%.