Thermal analysis of water-cooled photovoltaic cell by applying computational fluid dynamics

Photovoltaic (PV) modules are used for producing electricity in different scales. The efficiency of these modules is highly dependent on their temperature. Owing to the higher efficiency of PV cells at lower temperatures, different thermal management approaches have been suggested in recent years. Water cooling is one of the most efficient methods in PV cells thermal management. In the present article, numerical simulation, on the basis of computational fluid dynamic, is performed to investigate the influence of solar irradiance, ambient temperature and speed of wind on the efficiency and temperature of a monocrystalline cell. The outcomes of simulation revealed that utilizing the applied cooling approach for PV cells in hot ambient temperature and high solar irradiance is more useful. In addition, it is concluded that by employing water for cooling the cell, under the considered conditions, the temperature of the cell can be kept in an appropriate range which prevents its efficiency degradation at high solar irradiance and ambient temperatures. Furthermore, according to the obtained temperature of the cell in different considered cases it is observed that the effect of wind speed is in lower degree of importance compared with solar irradiance and ambient temperature in cases of employing water cooling, while wind speed impact become noticeable when the thermal management approach is not employed. The maximum enhancement in the cell efficiency is approximately 52% in comparison with the reference case without applying cooling.