A study of PV/T collector with honeycomb heat exchanger

This paper present a study of a single pass photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) solar collector combined with honeycomb heat exchanger. A PV/T system is a combination of photovoltaic panel and solar thermal components in one integrated system. In order to enhance the performance of the system, a honeycomb heat exchanger is installed horizontally into the channel located under the PV module. Air is used as the heat remover medium. The system is tested with and without the honeycomb at irradiance of 828 W/m2 and mass flow rate spanning from 0.02 kg/s to 0.13 kg/s. It is observed that the aluminum honeycomb is capable of enhancing the thermal efficiency of the system efficiently. At mass flow rate of 0.11 kg/s, the thermal efficiency of the system without honeycomb is 27% and with honeycomb is 87 %. Throughout the range of the mass flow rate, the electrical efficiency of the PV module improved by 0.1 %. The improved design is suitable to be further investigated as solar drying system and space heating.