Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/187805 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Citation: 
[Journal:] Energy Reports [ISSN:] 2352-4847 [Volume:] 1 [Publisher:] Elsevier [Place:] Amsterdam [Year:] 2015 [Pages:] 30-35
Publisher: 
Elsevier, Amsterdam
Abstract: 
Photovoltaic (PV) semiconductor degrades in performance due to temperature rise. A super thin-conductive thermal absorber is therefore developed to regulate the PV working temperature by retrofitting the existing PV panel into the photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) panel. This article presented the parallel comparative investigation of the two different systems through both laboratory and field experiments. The laboratory evaluation consisted of one PV panel and one PV/T panel respectively while the overall field system involved 15 stand-alone PV panels and 15 retrofitted PV/T panels. The laboratory testing results demonstrated the PV/T panel could achieve the electrical efficiency of about 16.8% (relatively 5% improvement comparing with the stand-alone PV panel), and yield an extra amount of heat with thermal efficiency of nearly 65%. The field testing results indicated that the hybrid PV/T panel could enhance the electrical return of PV panels by nearly 3.5%, and increase the overall energy output by nearly 324.3%. Further opportunities and challenges were then discussed from aspects of different PV/T stakeholders to accelerate the development. It is expected that such technology could become a significant solution to yield more electricity, offset heating load freely and reduce carbon footprint in contemporary energy environment.
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Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article
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