Energy and Exergy Analysis of Water and Air Cooled PVT Systems with Heat Pipe Technology

The aim of this study is to design a PV panel cooler with heat pipes and to reduce the pumping costs through an optimum design approach using CFD(Computational Fluid Dynamics) techniques. According to CFD analyses, up to 12% of the original power generation capacity can be achieved by the new heat pipe technology. This paper also compares air cooling by finned heat pipes using natural convection and chimney effect. These results however show that technically feasible option is cooling by heat pipes and by generating useful heat if there exists a demand of suitable magnitude and load profile.