Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Thesis
Terms of Use
© 2024 Jiuning Ren. This work is freely available courtesy of the author. It may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. For all other uses, please contact the copyright holder.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Engineering Department
First Advisor
E. Carr Everbach
Abstract
The efficiency of a PV panel is limited by its temperature, where panel efficiency drops with increasing operating temperature, resulting in low panel efficiency in hot summers. This project aims to design and implement a cheap and efficient cooling system for a PV panel in the form of a panel back mount. For this project, Solar Lab facilities were updated and used as systems for testing the functionalities of the back-panel mount design. These facilities include a Q.PEAK DUO BLK-G8+ 340 Monocrystalline silicon module PV panel, a Prostar PS-15M solar charge controller for power maximization and PV panel power monitoring, a Seahawk deepcycle battery as a load for the panel output, and a solar thermal fluid circulation and data acquisition system consisting of various pumps, valves, and sensors. Testing was done on a sunny, cloudless, and warm day in late April.
The results show that the system operating at a relatively low temperature and small temperature difference, with a maximum panel temperature of less than 41℃ and a maximum panel temperature drop of 6 ℃, starts to experience a significant decrease in PV panel temperature and induce a reasonable increase in electrical output of around 20 Watts. Because of relatively cool ambient temperatures, the effectiveness of the heat transfer is not as large as estimated, and more experiments are recommended during mid-summer for a better understanding of the system. Future efforts should focus on increasing the thermal contact area, downsizing the system, and closing the circulation loop to generate conclusive results on system efficiency and cost-benefit evaluation.
Recommended Citation
Ren, Jiuning , '24, "Cost-effective PV Panel Back Mount for Temperature Control and Heat Utilization" (2024). Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards. 918.
https://works.swarthmore.edu/theses/918