Reducing the thermal load of a photovoltaic module through an optical water filter

Wisam A.M. Al-Shohani*, Raya Al-Dadah, Saad Mahmoud

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents new experimental investigations to reduce the accumulation of heat in a photovoltaic module. The optical water filter is placed above the photovoltaic module used to absorb the undesired infrared spectra and converts it to heat, and also transmits the visible spectra to the photovoltaic module to produce electricity simultaneously. In this work, the temperature of the solar cells was measured at various water thickness in the filter (1–5 cm) and different distance between the filter and the photovoltaic module (1–3 cm). Results show that there is a significant effect of the water layer thickness on the temperature reduction of the solar cells (14–30.2%), while showed lower impact of the distance between the filter and the photovoltaic module (6.2–12.2%).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)475-486
Number of pages12
JournalApplied Thermal Engineering
Volume109
Issue numberPart A
Early online date20 Aug 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Oct 2016

Keywords

  • Infrared
  • Optical water filter
  • Photovoltaic
  • Photovoltaic/thermal
  • Renewable energy
  • Spectrum splitter

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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