TITLE:
Experimental Investigation of Solar Panel Cooling by a Novel Micro Heat Pipe Array
AUTHORS:
Xiao Tang, Zhenhua Quan, Yaohua Zhao
KEYWORDS:
Solar Panel Cooling, Photoelectric Conversion Efficiency, Micro Heat Pipe array
JOURNAL NAME:
Energy and Power Engineering,
Vol.2 No.3,
August
25,
2010
ABSTRACT: A novel micro heat pipe array was used in solar panel cooling. Both of air-cooling and water-cooling conditions under nature convection condition were investigated in this paper. Compared with the ordinary solar panel, the maximum difference of the photoelectric conversion efficiency is 2.6%, the temperature reduces maximally by 4.7℃, the output power increases maximally by 8.4% for the solar panel with heat pipe using air-cooling, when the daily radiation value is 26.3 MJ. Compared with the solar panel with heat pipe using air-cooling, the maximum difference of the photoelectric conversion efficiency is 3%, the temperature reduces maximally by 8℃, the output power increases maximally by 13.9% for the solar panel with heat pipe using water-cooling, when the daily radiation value is 21.9 MJ.