Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Economic analysis of PV-T collectors in Brazil
Submission Author:
Victor César Pigozzo Filho , SC
Co-Authors:
Matheus Buss, Victor César Pigozzo Filho, Bruna de Oliveira Busson, Alexander Leyton Mopan, loic tachon, Henrique Hipólito, Felipe Cardim de Araújo, Júlio Passos, Mateus Gabiatti
Presenter: Matheus Buss
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-0235
Abstract
The Brazilian photovoltaic market has shown considerable growth over the last few years. In 2013 there was almost no energy being generated by photovoltaics. Today there are enough photovoltaics installed to generate almost 3 GW of power. The solar thermal collector market in the country is also considerable. In 2018 the installed capacity was over 11 GW, representing an area of roughly 16 million square meters. However, customer surveys show that only 15% of the photovoltaic users have solar thermal collectors installed. The fast expansion of the photovoltaic market and large adoption of solar thermal collectors suggest that there is a considerable market for photovoltaic thermal (PV-T) systems. This work attempts to quantify the potential costs and gains of a novel PV-T system. The intended system enables a common photovoltaic panel to also generate thermal energy by using a heat exchanger installed on its back face. Simulations were made for residential use of PV-T systems in different parts of Brazil. An average Brazilian household is considered for 13 different states. These averages consider several different parameters that characterize the energetic needs of the consumer. Simulations were made for three different scenarios that could transition to the PV-T system proposed. An overview of the simulations made in TRNSYS is presented. Based on the thermal simulations the break-even price for the heat exchanger on all states and scenarios analyzed is obtained. The results obtained show that the system can be economically viable. The best scenario occurred when the user transitions from having no solar energy generation to a PV-T system. In this scenario the break-even price for a heat exchanger ranged from R$ 3856.23 to R$ 2733.40. The worst case happened in the scenario where both PV panels and solar thermal collectors were already installed. In this scenario the prices ranged from R$ 813.02 to R$ 140.83.
Keywords
PV-T Solar Collector, Solar Energy, Economic analysis, annual simulations
