Exergetic performance assessment of a solar photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) air collector

In this paper, an attempt is made to evaluate the exergetic performance of a solar photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) air collector. A detailed energy and exergy analysis is carried out to calculate the thermal and electrical parameters, exergy components and exergy efficiency of a typical PV/T air collector. Some corrections are done on related heat loss coefficients. An improved electrical model is used to estimate the electrical parameters of a PV/T air collector. Further, a modified equation for the exergy efficiency of a PV/T air collector is derived in terms of design and climatic parameters. A computer simulation program is also developed to calculate the thermal and electrical parameters of a PV/T air collector. The results of numerical simulation are in good agreement with the experimental measurements noted in the previous literature. Finally, parametric studies have been carried out. It is observed that the modified exergy efficiency obtained in this paper is in good agreement with the one given by the previous literature. It is also found that the thermal efficiency, electrical efficiency, overall energy efficiency and exergy efficiency of PV/T air collector is about 17.18%, 10.01%, 45% and 10.75% respectively for a sample climatic, operating and design parameters.