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A Ducted Photovoltaic Façade Unit with Forced Convection Cooling

Author

Listed:
  • Abdel Rahman Elbakheit

    (Department of Architecture and Building Science, College of Architecture and Planning, King Saud University, P.O. Box 57448, Riyadh 11574, Saudi Arabia)

  • Sahl Waheeb

    (Applied College, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah 24382, Saudi Arabia)

  • Ahmed Mahmoud

    (Department of Architecture and Building Science, College of Architecture and Planning, King Saud University, P.O. Box 57448, Riyadh 11574, Saudi Arabia)

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of forced convection cooling in a ducted photovoltaic façade unit. Where a photovoltaic panel is backed by a 5 cm thick insulated duct at a depth of 50 cm. The potential of heat removal from the photovoltaic unit due to forced convection is investigated with a range of fan speeds from 1 m/s to 6 m/s. It is found that the ΔT between the inlet and outlet of the duct ranged from 2.6–24.6 °C. A fan speed of 4 m/s yielded the highest cooling potential by removing 550 W with a cooling efficiency of 51%. Whereas a fan speed of 6 m/s yielded the lowest mean PV cell temperature of 62.7 °C. This would improve the cell’s efficiency by 17.53%. This very experimental setup has been tested previously with natural convection cooling, which removed 529 W with a maximum efficiency of 48.98% This improves PV panel efficiency by 12.69%. The addition of heat removed and power recovered by the ducted system was 68.53% of the former (i.e., forced convection), while it was 61.67% for the latter. A 12 V DC fan with a variable speed electric circuit powered by a fraction of the PV generated power (i.e., 0.75 W) yielded better cooling that translated into nearly 19 W of further energy generation.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdel Rahman Elbakheit & Sahl Waheeb & Ahmed Mahmoud, 2022. "A Ducted Photovoltaic Façade Unit with Forced Convection Cooling," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-13, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:19:p:12875-:d:937279
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    References listed on IDEAS

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