A numerical and experimental study on a heat pipe PV/T system

A novel heat-pipe photovoltaic/thermal system was designed and constructed by the authors. This system can simultaneously supply electrical and thermal energy. In addition, when compared with the traditional water-type photovoltaic/thermal system, this system can be used in cold regions without freezing. A dynamic model was developed to predict the performances of the heat-pipe photovoltaic/thermal system. Experiments were also conducted to validate results obtained for the simulation. A comparison between simulation values and experimental results demonstrated that the model was able to yield satisfactory predictions. Results indicated that the daily thermal and electrical efficiencies of the heat-pipe photovoltaic/thermal system were 41.9% and 9.4%, respectively, while the average heat and electrical gains were 276.9 and 62.3 W/m2, respectively. In addition, second-law efficiency, based on the second law of thermodynamics, is provided to analyze the total efficiency of the heat-pipe photovoltaic/thermal system, and the average total second-law efficiency of the system is 6.8%.