Numerical and experimental study on a PV/T system with static miniature solar concentrator

A photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system with static miniature solar concentrators can be integrated with building in the similar way to the flat plat PV/T system, however it can not only save lots of the PV materials, but also to some extent obtain a lower heat loss when the temperature is the same as that in the flat plate PV/T system. In this paper, a mathematical model was made to indicate the performances of the static miniature solar concentrating PV/T system. Experiments were also conducted to validate the results of the simulation. A comparison between the simulation and experiment demonstrated that the model was able to obtain the satisfactory simulation outcome to match the experiment outcome. Results showed that the absolute value of the deviation between simulation and experiment on PV electrical efficiencies were about 0.015 and 0.0065 on March 31st and May 13th, and the temperature curves of simulation and experiment were also consistent. In addition, the electrical and thermal performances on four days in different seasons were also simulated and the linear regression analysis on the thermal performance of this solar concentrating PV/T system was expressed to compare with the flat plate PV/T system, which indicated that the static miniature solar concentrating PV/T system has the lower heat loss coefficient and could further expand the use scope of solar energy in buildings.