Experimental Analysis of Glazed Solar Photovoltaic Thermal Air Collector

With the rapid depletion of fossil fuels, opportunities for renewable energy including solar energy are endless. The efficiency of photovoltaic cells to convert the solar energy into electricity drops with the rise in temperature due to increased resistance. Thus improving the Efficiency by lowering the Thermal Resistance and allowing the cooling fluid (Air/Water) to flow through Solar Photovoltaic Thermal (PVT) system is an attractive option. Climate condition based performance of any PVT system varies location wise and cannot be generalized. A Photovoltaic Thermal Collector is a Solar Collector that combines a Photovoltaic module with a Solar Thermal Collector, and which produces Electricity and Heat at the same time. Depending on the medium used for collecting Thermal energy, there are two types of PVT collectors Air based and Water based. The integration of PV module and this decreases the Efficiency of PVT collectors, it is necessary to extract the heat in the form of hot or warm air from the PV module and thus decrease its temperature. The warm air extracted from the PVT collector can be utilized as a heat source for the building. In this study, an Air based Photovoltaic Thermal Air Collector with a Mono Crystalline Photovoltaic Module was designed for the Climatic Conditions of Bangalore, India and its Electrical and Thermal performance was analysed with the experimental results. The Climatic data of Bangalore for a period of 1 year (2016-2017) has been obtained from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune, India. Based on the Climatic data, the Experiment has been carried and the results indicated that the Thermal and Electrical Efficiencies of Photovoltaic Thermal Air Collector from the month of January to December were, on average 43 % and 11 % respectively. Graphs are drawn to evaluate the various effects of Temperature and Solar Radiation on tilted surfaces. Monthly and Hourly based graphs are drawn to evaluate the Temperatures and Solar Radiation. Monthly Analysis graph of Efficiencies is also drawn to evaluate Thermal, Electrical and Overall Efficiencies. The values calculated are put and shown as Tables in Appendix.