Experimental Analysis of the Performance of a Solar Photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) Water Collector with a Modified Absorber Design for the Climatic Condition of Assam, India

Abstract

A hybrid Photovoltaic Thermal (PV/T) collector is an integration of a PV module with a thermal collector for simultaneous generation of electricity and thermal energy. The major challenge facing PV/T collector is its low efficiency, which can be improved by design modification of the absorber plate. In the present work, a novel design of a hybrid PV/T water collector has been proposed by incorporating a modified channel type absorber, which is experimentally investigated under the climatic condition of the North eastern region of India. The effect of various important operating parameters such as mass flow rate and inlet water temperature has been thoroughly investigated for a collector tilt angle equal to the latitude of the region+5^o. Moreover, the overall heat loss coefficient of the designed PV/T collector has been estimated by determining the absorber plate temperature for varying mass flow rates. The results reveal that with the increase in mass flow rates, both the thermal and electrical efficiency increases, but with increasing inlet water temperatures, both thermal and electrical efficiency decreases.