On the Efficacy of PCM to Shave Peak Temperature of Crystalline Photovoltaic Panels: An FDM Model and Field Validation

Energies

Valerio Lo Brano¹  Giuseppina Ciulla²  Antonio Piacentino² 

[1] Department of Energy, Information Engineering and Mathematical Models, DEIM, Viale delle Scienze, Ed.9, Palermo 90128, Italy;

关键词: phase change material;    crystalline photovoltaic modules;    heat storage;    finite difference method;    experimental validation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/en6126188

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The exploitation of renewable energy sources and specifically photovoltaic (PV) devices have been showing significant growth; however, for a more effective development of this technology it is essential to have higher energy conversion performances. PV producers often declare a higher efficiency respect to real conditions and this deviation is mainly due to the difference between nominal and real temperature conditions of the PV. In order to improve the solar cell energy conversion efficiency many authors have proposed a methodology to keep the temperature of a PV system lower: a modified crystalline PV system built with a normal PV panel coupled with a Phase Change Material (PCM) heat storage device. In this paper a thermal model analysis of the crystalline PV-PCM system based on a theoretical study using finite difference approach is described. The authors developed an algorithm based on an explicit finite difference formulation of energy balance of the crystalline PV-PCM system. Two sets of recursive equations were developed for two types of spatial domains: a boundary domain and an internal domain. The reliability of the developed model is tested by a comparison with data coming from a test facility. The results of numerical simulations are in good agreement with experimental data.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.