Influence of encapsulation materials on the thermal performance of concentrator photovoltaic cells Articles uri icon

publication date

  • June 2021

issue

  • 101135

volume

  • 26

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 2214-157X

abstract

  • The present study focuses mainly on modifying the polycrystalline silicon solar cell structure to reduce the generated thermal stress and hot spot through the silicon layer. The modification consists of inserting nano-particle filler to the lower encapsulant layer as a technique for enhancing this layer's thermal conductivity. At the same time, the Tedlar-Polyester-Tedlar (TPT) is removed entirely from the numerical consideration to give the modified encapsulant layer direct contact with the cooling device. Moreover, the inlet/outlet headers were considered in the numerical consideration as no detailed study investigated their effect either numerically or experimentally. Three nano-scale loading ratios of Boron Nitride (BN), Zinc Oxide (ZnO), and Silicon Carbide (SiC) are combined with the lower Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate (EVA) layer, separately. The main target is to enhance the concentrated solar cell (CPV) system's performance by changing the lower EVA matrix layer's thermal conductivity. The investigated performance is conducted under a constant solar concentration ratio of 20 suns, variable coolant flowrates, and counter flow (CF) operation. The n-SiC filler attains a significant reduction in the local solar cell temperature for all loading ratios, especially at 30%. The reported local cell temperature reduces from 325.8 to 309.6 K. This enhancement reduces the temperature by approximately 2 K compared with n-BN and n-ZnO. The same trend is achieved for the average silicon layer temperature for all studied CPV systems. Also, a significant improvement in the net gained electrical power, thermal and electrical efficiency, and a remarkable reduction in solar cell temperature are attained. At 1200 ml/h, the thermal and electrical efficiency achieves the highest value of 70.02% and 16.95%, respectively. Furthermore, there is a significant improvement in the net gained electrical power by 7.16% for SiC.

keywords

  • concentrator photovoltaic; encapsulant; eva; nanocomposite; thermal analysis