Performance Improvement and Optimisation Using Response Surface Methodology (Central Composite Design) of Solar Photovoltaic Module with Reflector and Automatic Water Cooling

The goal of this work is to use concentration of sunlight and automatic cooling to increase the photovoltaic module’s performance. Four identical solar photovoltaic modules have been taken for experiments: natural cooling of solar photovoltaic module (model 1), automatic water cooling of solar photovoltaic module (model 2), solar photovoltaic module with mirror reflectors (model 3) and solar photovoltaic module with mirror reflectors and automatic water-cooling system (model 4). The experiments were performed in the month of April, 2022, at Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. Hourly power output of 9.9 W from model 4 is found maximum and it is 11.24%, 7.6% and 6.5% higher than model 1, model 2 and model 3 respectively. Daily average electrical conversion efficiency for model 1, model 2, model 3 and model 4 was found to be 11.16%, 12.28%, 11.96% and 13.3% respectively. Model 4 has been found to be best model and is optimised using response surface methodology (central composite design) by taking solar radiation and cooling water flow rate as input variables and power output as response variable. Optimised conditions are found to be 878 W/m2 solar radiation and 2.09 L/min of cooling water flow rate. Moreover, economic analysis of all the models shows that the cost per kilowatt-hour of power output decreased by 8.76% and 9.52% for model 3 and model 4, respectively, in comparison to model 1.