Experimental investigation of photovoltaic systems for performance improvement using water cooling

Abstract

This research aims to analyse the comparative performance of two identical photovoltaic (PV) panels with load variations and integrating an automated water-cooling process under the climatic conditions of the United Arab Emirates. The work also presents the steps of system design, implementation and performance evaluation of the proposed PV system, and all electrical, control and mechanical components along with how they were integrated within a 100-W PV system. MATLAB®/Simulink® was used only to simulate the behaviours of the PV panel under wide ranges of incident sunlight and ambient temperature. The tests were performed for a day-long operation during a clear summer day. The experimental results demonstrate an improvement in the PV system performance compared with the uncooled system by ~1.6% in terms of total harvested energy using the proposed water-cooling process with a frequency of 2 minutes of cooling operation every 30 minutes during day hours.