Experimental investigation of solar panel cooling by a novel micro heat pipe array

A novel micro heat pipe array was used in solar panel cooling. Both of air-cooling and water-cooling conditions under nature convection condition were investigated in this paper. Compared with the ordinary solar panel, the maximum difference of the photoelectric conversion efficiency is 2.6%, the temperature reduces maximally by 4.7 degrees C, the output power increases maximally by 8.4% for the solar panel with heat pipe using air-cooling, when the daily radiation value is 26.3 MJ. Compared with the solar panel with heat pipe using air-cooling, the maximum difference of the photoelectric conversion efficiency is 3%, the temperature reduces maximally by 8 degrees C, the output power increases maximally by 13.9% for the solar panel with heat pipe using water-cooling, when the daily radiation value is 21.9 MJ.