New technique for improving performance of photovoltaic cell

• Main Authors: Mohammed, Mohammed J., Khalil, Wissam H., Bouguecha, Anas, Haddar, Mohamed
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air conditioners; Efficiency; Heat sinks; Operating temperature; Photovoltaic cells; Temperature gradients
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0199667

Using photovoltaic cells is limited due to their high cost and low efficiency. where its efficiency is less than 15%–20%. The high operating temperature of photovoltaic cells leads to a decrease in their efficiency. Accordingly, the cell’s effectiveness and operational life are negatively impacted by the high operating temperature. This research looked at, the Ansys Fluent program (CFD) and MATLAB programs were used to investigate and analyze the result of using air from the outer part of a split unit air conditioner to cool the PV cell. A mono-crystalline silicon PV cell with a capacity of 250 watts and dimensions of (1640 x 990 x 40) mm was adopted in this analysis. The findings indicated that the operating temperature of the uncooled photovoltaic cell was 60.959 °C, while it was 42.211 °C for the cooled cell with heat sink at 12 am. The higher temperature difference was 18 °C between the cooled and uncooled cells in the middle of the day. While the lowest difference in operating temperature was 12 °C at 4 pm. The operating temperature dropped at a rate of 16% and the average rate of rise in electrical output was 5% between the cooled and uncooled cells. This entails lowering the operating temperature, which increases the amount of energy produced while also extending life of PV cell.