Analysis of thermal and electrical performance of a hybrid (PV/T) air based solar collector for Iraq

The electrical and thermal performance of a typical single pass hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) air collector is modeled, simulated and analyzed for two selected case studies in Iraq. An improved mathematical thermo-electrical model is derived in terms of design, operating and climatic parameters of the hybrid solar collector to evaluate its important characteristics: collector flow and heat removal factors, PV maximum power point and its temperature coefficient, and overall power and efficiency. Unlike previous PV/T thermal models, the present model is obtained with some additions and corrections in radiation and convection heat coefficients for the top loss and for the air duct with more applicable sky temperature correlation. The well-known 5-parameter electrical model of PV module is solved using improved boundary conditions and translation equations for better convergence and accuracy. The voltage temperature coefficient of the PV module is included in the boundary conditions for convergence stability. The module parameters are taken to be dependent on solar radiation and PV cell temperature for improved accuracy. A Matlab computer simulation program is developed to solve the thermo-electrical model. The developed model is verified with previously published experimental results and theoretical simulations; it is proved to be most accurate in respect to percentage errors and correlation coefficients. Different parameters of the PV/T collector such as cell and air temperatures, thermal gain, PV current and voltage, and fill factor have been investigated. The results identified the effects of most important operating conditions such as sky, inlet and cell temperatures, air flow rate and incident solar radiation on the performance of the hybrid collector. The approved model is applied for a winter day (22 January 2011) in Baghdad city and for a summer day (20 May 2011) in Fallujah city. It is found that the electrical, thermal and overall collector efficiencies for the two case studies were 12.3%, 19.4% and 53.6% respectively for the winter day, while that for the summer day were 9%, 22.8% and 47.8%.