Experimental and numerical investigation on the performance of amorphous silicon photovoltaics window in East China

Experiments in a comparable hot-box have been carried out for the study of the thermal performance and power generation of a double-glazing window system integrated with amorphous silicon (a-Si) photovoltaic (PV) cells in Hefei, east region of China. Compared to PV single-glazing window, the indoor heat gain of PV double-glazing window is reduced to 46.5% based on experiment data. The electric efficiencies are both about 3.65% with packing factor 0.8 of PV single-glazing window and PV double-glazing window. The numerical simulation with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method has been performed for the prediction of air flow and thermal performance of PV double-glass window. The temperature distribution and thermal performance predicted by the CFD model are in good agreement with the experimental data. Compared between the experimental and numerical results, temperature differences of PV modules are only 1.7% and 1.1% for PV double-glazing and PV single-glazing window, respectively. Because of the much lower inner surface temperature of PV double-glazing window compared with that of PV single-glazing window, the predicted mean vote (PMV) of the office work stage area with PV double-glazing window is well improved.