Enhancement Of Heat Transfer in Photovoltaic Cells

By Usage of Phase Change Materials and Fins.

By :Shounak
Rajat
Mukesh
Project Supervisor:KV SAI SRINADH
Abstract

The world is moving towards utilizing renewable sources of

energy for meeting its day to day requirements. The demand for
PV cells has risen in the recent few years. PV cells convert the
irradiated energy from the Sun and convert it into electrical
energy. However apart from producing electrical energy the PV
cell raises its temperature simultaneously. This leads to
dampening he performance of the cell. The analysis in our
project deals with overcoming this hindrance by utilization of
PCM material of optimum depth and Fins of optimum
parameters.

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Deficiences in current Photovoltaic cells


The photovoltaic cells convert only a fraction of solar radiation
into electricity.

Major Portion gets converted into heat which tends to hamper
the performance of the cells.

So there is a need for a mechanism in the dissipation of heat
from the cells. For effective utilization of cells.

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Temperature Coefficient

●
The impact of temperature on solar panel efficiency is known
as the temperature coefficient.
●
This value, which is normally given in the form of negative
percentage, reveals the impact of temperature on the panel.
●
For example,in one of the study conducted wherein Solar
Panels were tested at 25 0C.It was observed that if
Temperature coefficient of panel is -0.5 then for rise in every
1 OC rise in temperature the maximum power in panels
reduced by 0.5%.

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Why Phase Change Material and What are they?

PCM absorbs heat from the PV cells and stores it as latent

energy
And changes its phase. It later
Cools down and reverts back to
Its original phase.
Of all the materials in PCM Paraffin
Wax is the best since it has high
Latent heat fusion and also
Operates under wide range of temperatures.
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What is need for Fins?

Phase Change materials have very low thermal conductivity,

therefore after absorbing heat from the cells and changing its
phase it they are not able to effectively dissipate heat, which
hinders the effectiveness of PV cell.
Fins play an important role here as they tend to increase the
surface area for convection and effectively dissipates heat .
Aluminium and Copper fins will be chosen in our analysis since
they are widely used at an industrial level.

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Objectives of Our Analysis


Find the optimum depth of PCM material.

Find the optimum working parameters of the fins. Like width
of the fins, spacings, shape of fins.

Optimize the performance of the cell in this process.

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Expected Outcomes from the analysis


Plot Temperature Distribution by varying the depth of PCM
material and obtain the optimum depth which maintains lowest
temperature.

CFD Convection analysis to be done on the fins.

Plot the temperature distribution with respect to variation in
various parameters of the fin.

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Project Execution Plan

1)Prepare CAD models in Software like creo and import it Ansys.

2)First the analysis of heat extraction to be done using only the phase
change material in Ansys.
3)Then the imported fin model is added and now the effect of various
parameters of the fin is to be observed on the temperature of the phase
change material.
4)The material properties of fins and Phase change materials like
conductivity(k),Heat Capacity(c) ,thickness(t),Density(rho) are obtained from
standard data books.
5)The thermal response of Phase change material is plotted for various
changes in the parameters of the fins.
6) Also caryy out calculations from normal methods like Momentum
Equations and Continuity Equations to verify the result obtained from the
software.