Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
REFRIGERATION OF PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULES WITH PELTIER CELLS
Submission Author:
Bruno de Oliveira Schneider , ES
Co-Authors:
Bruno de Oliveira Schneider, Igor Belisario, Carlos Eduardo Silva Abreu, Alan Patrick Siqueira
Presenter: Bruno de Oliveira Schneider
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-1421
Abstract
Photovoltaic solar energy is in full development due to the need to diversify the world energy matrix to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Despite the numerous advantages, the efficiency of energy conversion in photovoltaic panels is directly influenced its operating temperature, as the maximum power obtained decreases with increasing temperature. To cool the panels, thermoelectric exchangers, or Peltier cells, are an alternative with the potential to be extremely light, quiet, without vibration and more compact than the compression and absorption cycles. This research aims to verify the technical feasibility of a cooling system for photovoltaic panels using thermoelectric heat exchangers powered by the electric energy generated by the photovoltaic panel. The thermal modeling of the photovoltaic module was applied by means of a unidimensional analysis to determine its thermal behavior in conjunction with the modeling of the thermoelectric module to verify the effect of cooling on the performance of the equipment. The number of Peltier cells and the cell feed current were varied to an average irradiance value in the region of São Mateus-ES using the EES® software. Through the results for the temperatures of the layers, power and efficiency of the photovoltaic panel, it was possible to reduce the temperature of the photovoltaic cell by up to 20.2 ºC for the configuration of 9 thermoelectric modules. It was also verified that the gross electricity reached 38.76W, representing an increase of 10%, resulting in an electrical efficiency of 17.55%, representing a gain of 1.60%. Evaluating the point at which it is possible to cool the panel with the minimum power loss, being the current of 0.5 A, the configuration with 3 thermoelectric modules reduced the temperature by 9.62 °C. In order to enable the equipment to operate close to its ideal temperature, the cooling system can contribute to reducing the degradation of the photovoltaic panel over time.
Keywords
energy, photovoltaic, cooling, peltier, Efficiency
