Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Increased Panel Height Enhances Cooling For Photovoltaic Solar Farms, Sarah E. Smith, Bianca Viggiano, Naseem Ali, Timothy J. Silverman, Martin Obligado, Marc Calaf, Raul Bayoan Cal
Increased Panel Height Enhances Cooling For Photovoltaic Solar Farms, Sarah E. Smith, Bianca Viggiano, Naseem Ali, Timothy J. Silverman, Martin Obligado, Marc Calaf, Raul Bayoan Cal
Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations
Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems suffer substantial efficiency loss due to environmental and internal heating. However, increasing the canopy height of these systems promotes surface heat transfer and boosts production. This work represents the first wind tunnel experiments to explore this concept in terms of array flow behavior and relative convective heat transfer, comparing model solar arrays of varied height arrangements - a nominal height, extended height, and a staggered height configuration. Analyses of surface thermocouple data show average Nusselt number (𝑁𝑢) to increase with array elevation, where panel convection at double height improved up to 1.88 times that of the …
Technoeconomic Analysis Of Changing Pv Array Convective Cooling Through Changing Array Spacing, Matthew Prilliman, Sarah E. Smith, Brooke Stanislawski, Janine M.F. Keith, Timothy J. Silverman, Marc Calaf, Raul Bayoan Cal
Technoeconomic Analysis Of Changing Pv Array Convective Cooling Through Changing Array Spacing, Matthew Prilliman, Sarah E. Smith, Brooke Stanislawski, Janine M.F. Keith, Timothy J. Silverman, Marc Calaf, Raul Bayoan Cal
Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations
Accuracy in photovoltaic (PV) module temperature modeling is crucial to achieving precision in energy performance yield calculations and subsequent economic evaluations of PV projects. While there have been numerous approaches to PV temperature modeling based on both the steady-state and transient thermal assumptions, there have been few attempts to account for changing convective cooling on PV module surfaces resulting from changes in the PV system layout. Changes in system row spacing, in particular, can have a meaningful impact on module electrical efficiency and subsequent economic performance, even when considering additional costs from the changes in row spacing. Using a heat …