Performance of four air-based photovoltaic thermal collectors configurations with bifacial solar cells

This paper presents the experimental and analytical investigation of four air-based bifacial photovoltaic thermal collectors. The experiments were performed on four bifacial PV panels with four different packing factors and four different configurations of air-based PVT collectors. A mathematical model was developed to evaluate the energy and exergy performance of the collectors. The four designs were studied in under the steady-state conditions. All four models of photovoltaic thermal collectors were fabricated and indoor experimental studies were conducted using the solar simulator. The double-path parallel flow design indicated the highest total energy efficiency of 51%–67%, and the single-path design indicated the lowest total energy efficiency of 28%–49%, at a 0.7 packing factor. The single-path collector design is the best option if electrical energy is the dominant desired output energy. However, double-path parallel flow design is the best option if the thermal energy is the dominant desired output energy. In addition, the single-path design had the highest exergy efficiency (8.2%–8.4%) followed by double-path parallel flow design (7.2%–8%).