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Thermodynamic analysis and experimental investigation of the water spray cooling of photovoltaic solar panels

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Abstract

This paper investigates an alternative cooling method for photovoltaic (PV) solar panels by using water spray. For the assessment of the cooling process, the experimental setup of water spray cooling of the PV panel was established at Sultanpur (India). This setup was tested in a geographical location with different climate conditions. It was found that the temperature of the panel decreased from 53 to 23 °C and the total power was increased by 15.3% by the water spray cooling. The effectiveness of the system is also increased by its cleaning effects. The efficiency of this solar PV is reduced with the increase of panel temperature. The experiments showed that the PV cell efficiency was dropped by 0.5% with an increase of 1 °C in panel temperature. However, the electrical efficiency of the panel was increased by 0.28%/0.2 °C of temperature drop by the single nozzle spray cooling.

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Abbreviations

A :

Area/m−2

\(R_{\text{e}}\) :

Reynolds number

PV:

Photovoltaic

WBT:

Wet bulb temperature/°C

DBT:

Dry bulb temperature/°C

Q :

Heat transfer rate/W

\(\dot{m}\) :

Mass flow rate/kg s−1

T :

Temperature/K

\(C_{\text{p}}\) :

Specific heat at constant pressure/kJ kg−1 K−1

PCM:

Phase change material

G :

Solar irradiation/W m−1

I :

Current/A

V :

Voltage/V

h :

Heat transfer coefficient/W m−2 K−1

N u :

Nusselt number

P r :

Prandtl number

K :

Thermal conductivity/W m−2 K−1

v :

Velocity/m s−2

α :

Absorptivity

ε :

Emissivity

σ :

Boltzmann constant/W m−2 K−4

η :

Efficiency/%

μ :

Dynamic viscosity/N s m−2

p:

Panel

loss:

Loss

C:

Convection

E:

Evaporation

R:

Radiation

0:

Ambient condition

w:

Wall

f:

Fluid

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Delhi Technological University, Delhi, 110042, India

    Yunis Khan & Roshan Raman

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The NorthCap University, Gurugram, Haryana, 122017, India

    Roshan Raman

  3. University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610056, Sichuan, China

    Mohammad Mehdi Rashidi

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Usak University, 64000, Usak, Turkey

    Hakan Caliskan

  5. Department of Mechanical Engineering, KNIT Sultanpur, Sultanpur, Utter Pradesh, 228118, India

    Manish Kumar Chauhan & Akhilesh Kumar Chauhan

Authors
  1. Yunis Khan
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  2. Roshan Raman
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  3. Mohammad Mehdi Rashidi
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  4. Hakan Caliskan
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  5. Manish Kumar Chauhan
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  6. Akhilesh Kumar Chauhan
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Contributions

YK and RR had written the complete paper which was conceptualized by MMR and HC. Moreover, the proofreading was carried out by MMR and HC. All the experiments and data collection were performed by MKC and AKC under the esteemed guidance.

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Correspondence to Roshan Raman.

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Khan, Y., Raman, R., Rashidi, M.M. et al. Thermodynamic analysis and experimental investigation of the water spray cooling of photovoltaic solar panels. J Therm Anal Calorim 148, 5591–5602 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-023-12119-y

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