Experimental investigation of the performance of the novel HP-BIPV/T system for use in residential buildings

In this paper, the novel heat pipe building integrated photovoltaic/thermal system (HP-BIPV/T), designed for use in residential buildings in China, has been proposed with the composite of metal wires and phase change material (PCM) filling into the space between the finned heat pipes and insulation. The system was expected to provide the hot water and electricity to the residents of the buildings. In order to investigate the performance of the system, experiments were conducted at the laboratory of Guangdong University of Technology, China. It was found that the temperatures of the flat-plate glass cover, PV panels, and filling space presented the similar variation pattern when the ambient temperature was relatively stable. The tank water temperature could reach the maximum of 47.23 °C when the simulated solar radiation was at 900W/m2 and the water flow rate was at 600L/h. The relationship between the system's thermal efficiency and (Tmean-Tamb)/I had been setup in the linear relation. The system's daily average thermal, electrical and total efficiency were determined at 61.1%, 7.8% and 68.9% respectively of the maximum for the simulated solar radiation at 900W/m2 and water flow rate of 600L/h. By comparing with the conventional BIPV/T system, the cost and efficiency of the proposed system were higher by 52% and 25.5%. However, the cost of the proposed system could be massively reduced through mass-production and waste material recycling use.