Experimental investigation of exergy performance of a water cooled hybrid photovoltaic thermal collector

Abstract

In this paper, the performance of a water cooled hybrid photovoltaic thermal collector is evaluated by carrying out experimental exergy analysis by designing and fabricating a hybrid system to provide combined heat and power. The experimentation was carried out for mass flow rates, collectively ranging from 0.083 kg/s to 0.116 kg/s in different configurations. Along with losses and exergy destruction, the exergy efficiency was calculated using three different scenarios, i.e., by excluding exergy losses, by taking exergy losses and destruction and by considering exergy destruction only. On comparison, exergy efficiency for last scenario was observed on higher side and ranged between 48.55% to 61.36%, 41.44% to 55.85% and 35.09% to 48.16% for fixed inner tube flow rate of 0.091 kg/s and varying annulus mass flow rate of 0.008 kg/s, 0.017 kg/s and 0.025 kg/s, respectively. Such hybrid system may provide combined heat and power for semi-arid regions of Rajasthan, India.