Experimental Evaluation of Solar Cells in Concentrating Solar Collectors with Heat Extraction by Forced Air Flow

The photovoltaic (PV) cells suffer efficiency drop as their operating temperature increases especially under high solar intensity levels, so cooling of cells is one of the main concerns when designing concentrating photovoltaic systems. Air-cooling, either by forced or natural flow, presents non-expensive and simple method of PV cooling. This paper presents the use of an active air-cooling system as heat transfer augmentation in a low concentrating photovoltaic solar collector to improve its overall performance. A detailed description of this cooling system is given. Based on the experimental platform, the forced air-cooling concentrating photovoltaic solar cell system was investigated experimentally. The daily temperature profile of the solar cells rear surface and the output electric power are presented confirming the contribution of this cooling method in increasing system P-V transfer efficiency and data of the solar cells with no concentration system tested simultaneously.