Enhancing performance of PV module using water flow through porous media

To achieve a high level of photovoltaic (PV) panel performance, a cooling process have to be added to reduce temperature of PV module. In present study, a new design of cooling system is suggested and investigated numerically. Water is used as a working fluid through the back chamber of PV panel. The chamber is filled with porous media to increase convection heat transfer. The incompressible steady state flow of water is simulated using the ANSYS program utilizing Navier Stokes equations. The flow field of cooling fluid and temperature distribution of PV panel have been presented at different conditions to study the effects of mass flow rate, solar radiation and porosity, on the performance of the PV module. The result show that adding the porous media decreases the average temperature of the module by about 9-14 degrees C. Additionally, the heat transfer is greatly enhanced with the increase of flow rate. For validation of the presented work, an experimental work is implemented to compare the experimental results with numerical ones. These comparisons show a good agreement with a range of error between 4.5% and 8.5% for cooling without porous media and between 2.9% and 10.9% for cooling with porous media.