Performance of Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) System Using Magnetic Nanofluids

Abstract

Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) systems provide hot fluid (usually water) production as well as electrical energy. However, solar cells cannot convert a large fraction of the solar radiation incident to its surface into energy, and this efficiency of energy conversion is further decreased with increasing temperature in solar cells. Although the temperature of PV cells could be lowered naturally or by cooling with a forced refrigerant, creating a hybrid system using photovoltaic panels to-gether with thermal systems is a potential solution for increasing energy conversion efficiency. Nowadays, traditional fluids (water, air or hybrid) are used in the collector due to their thermal properties. This study aims to examine the electrical efficiency of the PV module and to evaluate both the electrical and thermal efficiency of the PV/T module. Magnetic nanofluids (i% by weight Fe203 and Fe304), which are new types of flow in terms of both energy efficiency and thermal efficiency, were used. Thus, the performance and overall efficiency of the collector have been increased significantly. In the experimental study, more heat is drawn from the heat-ed PV panels by taking advantage of the high thermal conductivity of nanofluids, resulting in an improvement of approximately io% in electrici-ty production. Because the amount of heat absorbed in thermal system is high, an average of 14% temperature increase was obtained in the hot fluid temperature compared with the base fluid water. Some thermodynamic specific heat capacities and material densities of 1% doped magnetic nanofluids (Fe304 and Fe203) used in the study (4179.994 ; 4116.54 J/kg.k) and (1003.37; 1009.735 kg/m3).