Energo Enviro Economic Analysis of Photovoltaic Module with Multiple Passive Thermal Management Techniques

Despite the advantage of direct power generation in Photovoltaics (PV), efficiency decrement with an increased working temperature is a major challenge. Hence the present experimental study undertook three prominent passive thermal management techniques among different methods reported in the literature, and the performance was compared under identical operating conditions. Out of two PV modules, one is the reference (PV-REF), and the other is subjected to different cooling, viz. natural circulation loop (PV-NCL), burlap (PV-BUR), and front cooling (PV-FC). In PV-NCL unit, a duct at the rear surface acts as the heater, while the finned tube is the cooler. PV-BUR cooling is employed by attaching burlap fabric to the module's rear surface, where water is trickling. In the case of PV-FC, a water pipe with tiny holes is placed at the top of the PV’s front surface. The experimentation shows that the temperature reduction (compared to PV-REF) in PV-NCL, PV-BUR, and PV-FC modules are 3.2°C, 11.6°C, and 24.6°C respectively, which yields a power increment of 8.2%, 16.2%, and 18.7%. On the enviro-economic front, the payback period is 2.9, 11.7, 2.7, and 2.1 years, and the corresponding values of CO₂ mitigation are 0.69, 0.73, 0.80, and 0.82 tons respectively. Thus, PV-BUR acts as a prospective competitor for PV-FC, and on the other hand, PV-NCL requires some design modifications to achieve better results.