Innovative cooling technique to improve the performance of photovoltaic panels

The working performance of solar photovoltaic panels is affected by several factors. Accumulated dust and elevated temperatures from higher solar irradiance are the main factors. Therefore, a novel dual-cooling approach was employed, and its effect on the solar photovoltaic panels’ performance was investigated. The working front and backside temperatures, output power, and efficiency of the cooled solar photovoltaic panel were evaluated and compared. The results revealed that the current cooling process reduced the front and backside temperatures of the module by 22–45% and 34–47%, respectively, as compared with the dusty solar photovoltaic module. In the cooled photovoltaic module, the output current was higher by 26–48% and 4–5% compared with dusty and controlled modules, respectively, while the output voltage was found to be higher by 8–10% compared with the controlled and dusty modules. This led to a rise in output power for the cooled photovoltaic module by 22–51% and 8–13% compared to dusty and controlled modules throughout the day. In addition, the presence of dust on the photovoltaic module significantly reduces the overall efficiency to 11% compared to 17% when applying the cooling process. The levelized cost of electricity from the current cooled system was lower by 38.5% and 8% than in the dusty and uncooled systems, respectively. This means the proposed cooling system is efficient from an economic point of view. The results showed the distinct importance of the current dual-cooling process to avoid photovoltaic module degradation by accumulated dust and elevated temperatures.