A novel methodology to compare between side-by-side photovoltaics and thermal collectors against hybrid photovoltaic thermal collectors

• Published in: Energy conversion and management 2019-12, Vol.202, p.112196, Article 112196
• Main Authors: Kamel, Mohamed A., Elbanhawy, Amr Y., Abo El-Nasr, M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: CCHP; Configuration management; Configurations; Constraints; Efficiency; Electricity; Electricity pricing; Exergy; Hybrid photovoltaic thermal collectors; Methodology; New technology; Optimization; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; Polygeneration; Sensitivity analysis; Solar collectors; Solar Thermal collectors
• ISSN: 0196-8904; 1879-2227
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enconman.2019.112196

•System-level comparison is introduced instead of component-level.•CCHP-electricity and Solar-electricity selling prices criterion is introduced.•Comparison between side-by-side PVs and SCs against PV/Ts in CCHP systems.•Utilizing PV/T is more efficient and becomes more profitable at max selling price. Hybrid photovoltaic/thermal collectors (PV/Ts) have evolved as a new technology that can intervene with trigeneration systems to form a polygeneration system. Accordingly, many studies have compared the performance of side-by-side Photovoltaics (PVs) and Solar collectors (SCs) against PV/Ts based on several criteria. However, these comparisons between both configurations depended on the performance of these components as individual components not on a system basis. A methodology of real system-level comparison is presented in contrary to component-level comparisons that are available in the open literature. This methodology depends on comparing an optimized Solar-CCHP system side-by-side PVs and SCs, against a PVT-CCHP system with (PV/Ts) instead under a constrained area. The comparison is under the constraints of maximizing a formulated combined efficiency that combines energy, economy, environment and exergy aspects. Results showed that the PVT-CCHP system has higher combined efficiency but with lower NPV. Another novel contribution for determining the actual selling price of both sold CCHP-electricity and Solar-electricity is presented. It’s used for carrying out a sensitivity analysis on the selling price. Results showed that by increasing the selling price, the PVT-CCHP system achieved higher combined efficiency and NPV. These results assured the importance of comparing energy systems based on the system-comparison methodology as this methodology guarantees more improvement in system performance after allowing the configuration, sizing and scheduling of the original CCHP system to change after the solar intervention. Moreover, they came up with the conclusion that using PV/Ts instead of side-by-side PVs and SCs will yield higher combined efficiency but with lower NPV at proposed price mode but with increasing the selling prices of sold electricity, PV/Ts are favorable due to higher combined efficiency and NPV.