Experimental exergetic performance evaluation of a photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) air collector and comparison with numerical simulation

In this article, the experimental exergetic performance assessment of a solar photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) air collector is carried out. An experimental set-up for a PV/T air collector is built to measure its thermal and electrical parameters. A detailed energy and exergy analysis is fulfilled to calculate the thermal and electrical parameters, exergy components and exergy efficiency of a typical PV/T air collector. The thermal and electrical parameters of a PV/T air collector include solar cell temperature, back surface temperature, outlet air temperature, open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, maximum power point voltage, maximum power point current, etc. A modified thermal and electrical model is used to increase the calculations precision of the thermal and electrical parameters. Furthermore, an improved equation for the exergy efficiency of a PV/T air collector is derived in terms of design and climatic parameters. A computer simulation program is also developed to calculate the thermal and electrical parameters. The results of numerical simulation are in good agreement with the experimental measurements. Finally, parametric studies have been carried out. It is observed that the improved exergy efficiency obtained in this article is in good agreement with the one given by the previous literature. It is also obtained that the average value of thermal efficiency, electrical efficiency, overall energy efficiency, and exergy efficiency are nearly about 15.59 per cent, 11 per cent, 48.58 per cent, and 10.74 per cent, respectively, on the course of experiments.