Performance study of solar panels with cooling systems at low ambient temperature

Abstract

Solar panel temperature affects its conversion performance, which decreasing at high panel temperature. A water cooling system was designed and tested during winter at Maha Sarakham, Thailand when the ambient temperature was approximately 25°C in February. It was found that the front panel cooling system with the lowest panel temperature led to the best overall performance. Interestingly, even though the no cooling system had the highest panel temperature, it performed better than the back panel cooling system. Reduction of panel temperature increased output voltage but conversely reduced output current. In conclusion, the cooling system had little effect at ~25 °C ambient temperature and ~1000W/m² solar radiation. Even though the ambient temperature is low, solar panel temperature still affects the output voltage in a way that consequently reduces the overall solar panel performance.