Experimental performance evaluation and modeling of jet impingement cooling for thermal management of photovoltaics

Thermal management of PV systems is one of the most important factors that affect the overall performance especially in hot climate regions. In this paper, the viability of jet impingement cooling for PV panels subjected to the climatic conditions of Dhahran region of Middle East has been discussed. Experimental and numerical performance evaluation was carried out for two configurations, an uncooled PV system and an impingement cooled PV system. The complete cooling model incorporates optical, radiation, thermal, geometric and electrical model for the overall performance analysis of the PV system. Jet impingement geometric model for PV was developed to carry out the heat transfer analysis for single nozzle for analyzing the cell temperature, power output and conversion efficiency of PV strings. For precise prediction of the performance of the PV cell, seven parameters electrical model is employed, whereas for absorbed radiation calculation isotropic sky model is adopted. Temperature measurements revealed cell temperature as high as 69.7 °C and 47.6 °C for an uncooled system for June and December, respectively. By applying jet cooling, average cell temperature was reduced to 36.6 °C for June and 31.1 °C for December. Power output and conversion efficiency was enhanced by 51.6% and 66.6% by employing jet cooling for June, respectively. Similarly, December results revealed performance improvement by 49.6% in power output and 82.6% in conversion efficiency. Simulation carried out reveals that jet cooling with optimum parameters has not only significantly increased the electrical power output and cell efficiency but has reduced the cell temperature while keeping it uniform for each cell.