Water Immersion Cooling of PV Cells in a High Concentration System
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2011
Publication Title
Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
Volume
95
Issue
2
First page number:
538
Last page number:
545
Abstract
Temperature control of solar cells at high concentrations is a key issue. Short-term efficiency drop and long-term degradation should be avoided by effective cooling methods. Liquid immersion cooling eliminates the contact thermal resistance of back cooling and should improve cell performance. A 250X dish concentrator with two-axis tracking was utilized to evaluate a new CPV system using de-ionized water for immersion cooling. Time-dependent temperature distributions of the PV module of high power back point-contact cells were measured, as well as the I–V curves. The cooling capacities of the liquid immersion approach are very favorable. The module temperature can be cooled to 45 °C at a 940 W/m2 direct normal irradiance, 17 °C ambient temperature and 30 °C water inlet temperature. The temperature distribution of the module is quite uniform, but the electrical performance of the cell module degrades after a fairly long time immersion in the de-ionized water.
Keywords
BPC solar cell; Concentrator photovoltaic; De-ionized water; Dish system; Liquid immersion cooling; Photovoltaic cells – Cooling; Photovoltaic power systems; Water immersion
Disciplines
Energy Systems | Mechanical Engineering | Oil, Gas, and Energy | Sustainability
Language
English
Permissions
Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the item. Publisher policy does not allow archiving the final published version. If a post-print (author's peer-reviewed manuscript) is allowed and available, or publisher policy changes, the item will be deposited.
Repository Citation
Zhu, L.,
Boehm, R. F.,
Wang, Y.,
Halford, C. K.,
Sun, Y.
(2011).
Water Immersion Cooling of PV Cells in a High Concentration System.
Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 95(2),
538-545.