Optimization of thermoelectric cooling technology for an active cooling of photovoltaic panel

Abstract

The electrical efficiency of PV panel is undesirably influenced by the rise in the panel temperature and accelerates cell degradation which leads to reduction of life expectancy of PV module. A fall in PV module output power with rise in temperature is observed on non-removal of this excessive heat. For cooling such system, thermoelectric technology is appropriate for its integration adjacent to the PV module. Thermoelectric module (TEM) is attached at the back side of PV module for absorption of the heat generated in PV module by infrared spectrum. This paper deals with the active heat sinking from PV system using TEM tiles. Mathematical model for TEM is developed by consideration of temperature dependence of material properties. A temperature based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) scheme is presented for operating TEM at optimal temperature of PV system. Analysis and design of MPPT scheme, current controller and converter are also discussed. The performance improvement of PV system with thermoelectric cooling is presented through simulated results under MATLAB environment to compute the adequate heat sinking from the PV system exposed to wide spectrum other than visible light.