Numerical Investigation of Solar Cell Temperature for a Concentration of Photovoltaic System

Abstract

High operating temperatures of photovoltaic modules cause thermally-induced failures, degradation of the conversion efficiency and long-term reliability. As such, photovoltaic cells present limitations at high operating temperatures and anisotropic temperature distributions. Therefore, in order to maintain the temperature below the recommended operating temperature, there is a need for an effective cooling of the such power equipment. In this work, the thermal distribution in solar cells for a high concentration of photovoltaic system is numerically investigated using finite difference method. The parametric study in this work reveals significance of environmental parameters such as incident light, ambient conditions, wind velocity, and also material characteristics as well as the system size such as backplate emissivity, backplate coating, cell size, backplate thickness, and backplate length on the solar cell temperature. The solar cell temperature significantly reduces as the backplate thickness and emissivity, wind speed. However, reduction in backplate length potentially lower the cost and temperature of the solar cell. Also, increase in the incident light and ambient temperature cause increase in the solar cell temperature. It is anticipated that this work will contribute to an improved passive device design, particularly at the initial design stage when choosing the appropriate solar cell size and backplate thickness depending on the location of the project.