Fabrication, experimental study and testing of a novel photovoltaic module for photovoltaic thermal applications

• A PV/T module manufactured by laminating PV cells on a copper sheet.
• The obtained low thermal resistance facilitates better heat transfer from the PV cells.
• The PV/T module and PV module showed similar electrical performance.
• Forced cooling of the PV/T module is necessary for higher overall performance.
• The new PV/T module conforms as per IEC standards.

Solar Photovoltaic Thermal (PV/T) System is the integration of Solar Photovoltaic (PV) module and thermal system to serve the dual purpose of providing electricity and hot water/air simultaneously. But the high thermal resistance in a PV/T collector due to the thermal conductive adhesive, sheet and tube metal absorber reduces the heat transfer from the PV cells to the fluid and increases the overall cost of the system. This causes non-uniform and inefficient cooling of the PV cells. Hence, in this paper, a solar photovoltaic thermal module was developed by laminating a thin, flat copper sheet instead of Tedlar as the bottom layer. This modification is then integrated to a single water channel to make a PV/T collector. Primary energy saving efficiency of 35.32% was obtained at 0.01 kg/s mass flow rate, whereas the reference PV module attained only 20.87%. Theoretical calculations using material properties of the different layers of PV/T module and PV module showed a decrease in thermal resistance and an increase in thermal capacitance compared to the PV module. Also discussed in this paper was the positive results of few conformance tests conducted on the PV/T module according to IEC standards.