Numerical Study Of Natural Convection Through A Photovoltaic-Thermal PVT Building Solar Chimney Suitable For Natural Cooling

Abstract Transient mixed convective airflow in a novel Building Solar Chimney designed in connecting together as a single device a PhotovoltaicThermal PVT collector with transparent PV cells as active wall and a solar thermal flat-plate collector has been analyzed numerically using a stream function vorticity formulation and employing a finite difference scheme. The Photovoltaic-Thermal Building Solar Chimney could not only generate electricity but also achieve potential energy saving by the reduction of the air conditioning cooling loads when it is applied in tropical climate conditions. The results are presented in the form of streamlines isotherm contours local Nusselt number mass air flow characteristics and the dimensionless temperature. The effects of Grashof and Reynolds numbers and the geometrical parameters on the performances of the Building Solar Chimney are presented and analyzed. Based on the resulting numerical prediction it is found that the PhotovoltaicThermal Building Solar Chimney PVT-BSC model offers a good electrical efficiency while PhotovoltaicThermal Reverse Building Solar Chimney PVT-RBSC collector offers a good thermal efficiency. Finally the results showed that no Building Solar Chimney studied can simultaneously provide good electrical and thermal efficiency.