LAUSR

In recent decades, photovoltaic (PV) systems have been among the most popular solutions for renewable energy. In spite of their widespread application, it is well known that the efficiency of PV systems decreases with temperature. One solution for this shortcoming is to cool the PV panel, thus characterizing a hybrid photovoltaic–thermal (PV/T) system, where electrical and thermal energies are produced simultaneously, for multiple uses. This work presents an experimental investigation of a hybrid PV/T system operating under tropical climate conditions, with water flowing in natural convection, so as to reduce parasitic energy consumption, through a 10-row single-circuit coil made of copper tubes. Different configurations of the PV/T system were analyzed. Initially, in order to obtain reference data, tests were carried out with no cooling and, consequently, no heat recovery. Two different sizes of thermal energy reservoirs were tested with full or partial (tube-only) insulation. Results show an improvement of 7.5% on the electrical efficiency of the photovoltaic panel and a total efficiency of the PV/T system going up to 69.7%, when implementing the best-performance insulation layer configuration.