Design and performance study of a low concentration photovoltaic-thermal module

Compared with traditional photovoltaic-thermal system, low concentration photovoltaic-thermal systems install the low-power concentrator (compound parabolic concentrator, Fresnel concentrator, miniature trough concentrator, etc) to improve system performance. In this paper, a baffle heat exchange channel was designed, which can decrease the temperature gradient of low concentration photovoltaic-thermal module in the flow direction, based on the traditional flat-box photovoltaic-thermal collector. The system performance was monitored with different baffle spacing, flow rate, inlet temperature, ambient temperature, and radiation intensity by adopting simulation methodology. Furthermore, an experiment was performed to validate and evaluate the simulation results. The results indicated that, on a typical day, the maximum of thermal efficiency and electrical efficiency of the module were 55.11% and 12.50%, respectively.