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Numerical study on optical and electric-thermal

performance for solar concentrating PV/T air system
SUN Jian1,2 & SHI MingHeng1†
1
School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China;
2
Department of Thermal Energy Engineering, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen 333001,China

Hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system with solar concentrator is an effective way to improve solar
energy conversion efficiency. In this work, a single-pass PV/T air system with a three-trough compound
parabolic concentrator (CPC) of concentration ratio 2.0 is designed and the solar incident distributions
at the solar cell surface are calculated by ray tracing method. Based on energy balance, the heat
transfer models of all main components in this system are developed. The effects of some main de-
signing and operational parameters on the electric-thermal performance of the system are analyzed.
The results show that the solar radiation intensity can be higher than 1200 W/m2 at most area of the cell
surface. The temperature of the air and cell surface increases along the length of the system. Thus the
system efficiency of the CPC is higher than that of the system without the CPC. The thermal efficiency,
exergy and electrical efficiency of this CPC system increase with increasing of the air mass flow rate
and the length of the system. With increasing packing fraction the electrical efficiency increases, but
the thermal efficiency decreases. The exergy efficiency increases slightly with the packing fraction
rising. The data obtained in this work are valuable for the design and operation for this kind of solar
concentrating PV/T systems.

photovoltaic/thermal system, CPC, exergy efficiency, thermal and electricity performance, optical

1 Introduction a cooling fluid to decrease the temperature of solar cell.

Recently the problems of energy shortage and environ-
mental pollution in the world have become much emer-
gent. Solar energy as a renewable and environment
friendly energy would be a hopeful one to meet the en-
ergy demand in the future. Solar energy would meet an
important proportion of the world needs in the future.
Utilization of solar energy can be broadly classified into
two categories: one is thermal application that converts
solar energy into thermal energy, and the other is photo-
voltaic system that converts solar energy directly into
electrical energy. Usually, these two utilizations are
separately used with a low energy efficiency. In order to
solve this problem, a new combined system PV/T was
developed which can generate both thermal and electri-
cal energy simultaneously. In 1978, Kern et al.[1] pre-
sented a prototype of PV/T system using air or water as
After that, a number of theoretical and experimental
works reported to evaluate the performance of the solar
energy PV/T system. Florschuetz [2] extended Hot-
tel-Whillier model to analyze the performance of solar
energy hybrid PV/T system which could also provide
domestic hot water. TRNSYS analysis program was de-
veloped at the University of Wisconsin by Klein et al.[3]
Garg et al.[4] developed a steady-state model to simulate
the performance of conventional hybrid photovoltaic/
thermal air heating collectors. Hegazy et al.[5] carried out
an investigation of the single and double pass PV/T air
flat-plate collectors. However, the wide application of
Received February 24, 2009; accepted March 30, 2009
doi: 10.1007/s11431-009-0242-x
†
Corresponding author (email: mhshi@seu.edu.cn)
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
50276013)

Citation: Sun J, Shi M H. Numerical study on optical and electric-thermal performance for solar concentrating PV/T air system. Sci China Ser E-Tech Sci, 2009,
52(12): 3514―3520, doi: 10.1007/s11431-009-0242-x
solar energy hybrid PV/T system is still limited because
of its expensive investment. In recent years, in order to
reduce the cost of combined PV/T system, considerable
research were reported in the literature on new solar
concentrating photovoltaic/thermal systems (Garg et
al.[6], O’Leary et al. [7], Whitfield et al.[8], Othman et
al.[9], Chen et al.[10]). The concentrating photovoltaic/
thermal system with cheap concentrator and higher effi-
ciency solar cell are used to lower the cost of solar elec-
tricity. Because only a fraction of the incoming optical
energy is converted into electrical energy when concen-
trating sunlight onto solar cell, the most of the absorbed
energy by the solar cell will be converted into thermal
energy, which increases the temperature of solar cell and
decreases its electrical efficiency. Therefore, it is neces-
sary to remove the heat from the solar cell by air or wa-
ter. Solar concentrating hybrid photovoltaic/thermal
system would be a hopeful way to solve this problem.
This work presents a numerical simulation of the op-
tical, thermal and electrical performance of a solar
photovoltaic/thermal air system with the compound
parabolic concentrator (CPC) and fins. The optical
Figure 1 Section diagram of CPC.
Figure 2 The schematic model of concentrating PV/T system with three-trough CPC and fins along with the heat transfer process.
Sun J et al. Sci China Ser E-Tech Sci | Dec. 2009 | vol. 52 | no. 12 | 3514-3520
performance of a single-trough CPC is analyzed by use
of a ray tracing technique. The effects of various design
and operating parameters on the electric-thermal per-
formance of the hybrid PV/T system with three troughs
CPC and fins are also examined.
2 System descriptions
2.1 Compound parabolic concentrator
A compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) is designed
based on the edge-ray principle. It is a non-imaging line-
axis concentrator, which consists of two reflectors con-
centrating the radiation from aperture to absorber. All
rays incident on the aperture inside the acceptance angle
θ as shown in Figure1. Because the mirror area of high
concentrating ratio CPC is too large, it is necessary to
cut off the top portion of reflectors, and this does not
loss much radiation in concentrator. The detail optical
and thermal properties of CPC are adopted from ref.
[11]. In this work, the concentrating ratio is selected as
2.0, the reflectors is truncated by third height.
2.2 System model
The system schematic model and heat transfer process
are shown in Figure 2. The system consists of a low-iron
glass cover, reflectors, solar cells, absorber panel, back
panel, fins and insulating material. Passing through the
glass cover, the sunlight is concentrated onto solar cells
by the CPC. The solar cells connect in series along the
length direction of the system. The upper channel
formed by the glass cover and the absorber panel over
which the solar cells are pasted is enclosed to keep cell
surfaces clean. The cooling air flows in the lower chan-
nel formed by the back plate and the fins attached to the
back of absorber panel. The compound parabolic con-
centrators concentrate solar radiation onto the soar cells.
The fins on the back of the absorber panel enhance the
3515
heat transfer to the air and improve the efficiency of the Ac + Afinηf
ηp = ,
system. Acb

3 Heat transfer model where ηf is the fin efficiency,

tanh(mH f )
ηf = , m = (2hf / λf δ f )1/ 2 .
3.1 Energy equations λf δ f
For the sake of simplicity, some assumptions are made The solar cell efficiency depends on the cell tem-
as follows. perature as given by ref. [2]
1) The heat transfer process is one dimensional and in ηpv = η ref [1 − 0.0054(Tp − 298.15)] ,
a steady state.
2) The heat capacities of glass cover, CPC, solar cell, where ηref is a reference efficiency of solar cell at solar
fins, absorber and back panel are negligible. irradiance 1000 W/m2 and temperature Tref=25℃. In this
3) The CPC is ideal and all radiation incident within work ηref is taken as 10%.
the acceptance angle can reach the solar cells. Cooling air:
4) The radiation passing through CPC inside the ac- mCf dTf A
= hcpf cb η p (Tp − Tf ) + hcbf (Tb − Tf ). (3)
ceptance angle is constant. wd x Ac
5) Solar radiation converted into thermal energy is Back plate:
absorbed totally by the solar cell and absorber panel. A
hrpb cb (Tp − Tb ) + hcbf (Tf − Tb ) = U b (Tb − Ta ). (4)
6) The temperatures of the solar cell and absorber are Ac
uniform.
3.2 Radiative and convective heat transfer coefficients
Based on these assumptions, the energy equations can
be written as In the above equations, radiative and convective heat
Glass cover: transfer coefficients are calculated using the relations
reported in refs. [14—16].
α g GC (1 + τ g ρ p ρ R2 n )
The radiative heat transfer coefficients from glass
= hrgs (Tg − Ts ) + hcgw (Tg − Tw )
cover to sky and absorber plate are taken as[15]
Act
+ hcpg (Tg − Tp ) + hrpg (Tg − Tp ), (1) hrgs = ε gδ [(Tg + Ts )(Tg2 + Ts2 )(Tg − Ts )]/(Tg − Ta ), (5)
Ac
where the equivalent sky temperature is evaluated as[16]
where n = ( Ar Apv ) Ed is the average number of reflec-
Ts = 0.0552 Ta1.5 , (6)
tion for radiation inside the acceptance angle[11], where
Ar and Apv are the areas of reflector and solar cell, re- hrpg = δ (Tp + Tg ) (Tp2 + Tg2 )/ ((1/ ε p ) + (1 / ε g ) − 1). (7)
spectively; Ed is the fraction of radiation emitted by The convective heat transfer coefficient of the wind is
truncated CPC and goes to the solar cell. calculated by [14]
Photovoltaic/thermal plate:
hcgw = 2.8 + 3Vw. (8)
⎡ ⎛ ρ ρ ρ 2n ⎞⎤
τ gα p G ρ Rn d ⎢1 + ⎜
p g R
⎟ ⎥ (1 − P) + τ gα pv GP ρ Rn d The natural convection heat transfer coefficient be-
⎢ ⎜ C ⎟⎥ tween the solar cells and glass cover is calculated as [16]
⎣ ⎝ ⎠⎦
⎡ ⎛ ρ ρ ρ 2n ⎞⎤ hcpg = (l/H pg ) {1+1.44 [1 − 1708/(RaCosβ )]+
× ⎢1 + ⎜ ⎟ ⎥ (1 − η pv )
pv g R
× [1 − Sin(1.8β )1.61708/(RaCosβ )]
⎢ ⎜ C ⎟⎥
⎣ ⎝ ⎠⎦ +[(RaCosβ / 5830) (1 / 3)
− 1]+ }. (9)
A A
= hcpg ct (Tp − Tg ) + hrpg ct (Tp − Tg The forced convective heat transfer coefficient of
AC Ac
(2) cooling air is calculated by [15,16]
Acb A
+ hcpf ηp (Tp − Tf ) + hrpb cb (Tp − Tb ), hcpf = hcbf = (l/D)[0.0158 Re 0.8
Ac Ac
where d is a correction of gap loss [12]
. ηp is the total ef- +(0.00181 Re + 2.92) exp( −0.03795X/D ) ], (10)
ficiency of the absorber plate [13] where D is the hydraulic diameter of the channels; Re is

3516 Sun J et al. Sci China Ser E-Tech Sci | Dec. 2009 | vol. 52 | no. 12 | 3514-3520
the Reynolds number; x is the distance from the en- 5 Performance parameters
trance.
Some main performance parameters of the hybrid PV/T
4 Calculation method are defined and calculated as follows.
The useful thermal energy gained by airflow through
Substituting eqs. (1), (2) and (4) into eq. (3) can elimi- the PV/T system is
nate variables Tg, Tp and Tb from eq. (3), and give the n n

following first-order linear differential equation Qu = ∑ Qu , j = ∑ m C f (To, j − Ti , j ). (14)

j =1 j =1
dTf ( x) The thermal efficiency of the concentrating PV/T
+ pTf ( x) = q, (11)
dx system is
where p and q are the constants obtained through alge- Q
ηt = u . (15)
braic manipulations. GC
The boundary condition is The power energy generated by the concentrating
Tf(x)=Ti, at x=0, PV/T system is
Tf(x)=To, at x=L. n n ⎡ ⎛ ρ ρ ρ 2n
⎞⎤
Solving eq. (11) yields the air temperature in Epv = ∑ Epv, j = ∑ τ gα pv GP ρ Rn d ⎢1 + ⎜ pv g R
⎟ ⎥ηpv, j .
j =1 j =1 ⎢ ⎜ ⎟⎥ C
x-direction ⎣ ⎝ ⎠⎦
(16)
q ⎛ q⎞
Tf ( x) = + ⎜ Ti − ⎟ e− px , (12) The combined photovoltaic-thermal efficiency of the
p ⎝ p⎠ system is the sum of photovoltaic and thermal efficien-
and the outlet air temperature cies of the system[17] as
Qu + Epv
q ⎛ q⎞ ηpvt = = ηpv + η t . (17)
To = + ⎜ Ti − ⎟ e− pL . (13) CG
p ⎝ p⎠
The exergy efficiency of the combined photovoltaic-
In eq. (11), p and q are both functions of the tem- thermal system is[18]
peratures for various components, but these tempera- ⎡ 298 ⎤
tures are all unknown. To determine these temperatures, ηexergy = η pv + η t ⎢1 − ⎥. (18)
⎣ 298 + (To,air − Ta ) ⎦
an iterative algorithm is applied. The region of concen-
trating PV/T system is divided into 50 units (n =50) with
6 Results and discussion
each 0.22 m in length (dx =0.22).
To start calculation, Tg, Tp (Tp=Tpv) and Tb are guessed Some main thermo-physical parameters used in the cal-
for all the units respectively. The inlet temperature of culation are presented in Table 1. The system dimen-
the airflow at x=0 is equal to the ambient temperature sions are 0.636 m×11 m(W×L). The fin dimensions are
(Ti,1=Ta). With these temperatures, the heat transfer co- 0.0015 m×0.025 m×11 m (δ×H×L).
efficients and electrical efficiency of soar cell are evalu-
ated for the first unit, and then new temperatures can be Table 1 Thermo-physical parameters of the PV/T system

obtained by solving the energy equations. The iteration Parameter Value Parameter Value Parameter Value
process is continued with the latest updated variables αp 0.95 d 0.95 αg 0.04
until all the temperature values converge. Thus the outlet τg 0.90 Hpg 0.191 εb 0.95
temperature of the airflow for the first unit can be de- ρα 0.05 n 0.61 ρR 0.94
termined. Applying it as the inlet one to the next unit, ρg 0.06 P 0.52 εg 0.86
the outlet temperature for the second unit can be simi- αpv 0.90 C 2.00 εp 0.95
larly calculated. Repeat this step, all temperatures for Cf 1008 Ta 298 λ 203.6
different components can be determined.
The illumination intensity on the solar cell is simu- The operating conditions for the calculated PV/T sys-
lated with ray trace technique by Monte-Carlo method. tem are: the wind velocity is 3 m/s, and the range of so-

Sun J et al. Sci China Ser E-Tech Sci | Dec. 2009 | vol. 52 | no. 12 | 3514-3520 3517
lar radiation intensity is 200—800 W/m2.
Ray tracing technique is used to predict the solar ir-
radiative intensities at the solar cell surface of photo-
voltaic system with full single-trough CPC and truncated
CPC, respectively. The results are presented in Figures 3
and 4. Figure 3 shows the distribution of the incident
solar energy at the solar cell surface for the photovoltaic
system with full CPC at G=800 W/m2. It can be seen
that in the most region of cell surface the solar radiation
intensity is higher than 1200 W/m2. Figure 4 presents the
solar radiation distribution on the solar cell surface for
the photovoltaic system with a truncated third CPC. It
shows that the solar radiation intensity on the cell sur-
face is a little lower than that in Figure 3. Thus the trun-
cated third reflector has a negligible effect on the con-
centrating performance of the CPC. Accordingly, appro-
priate truncation can reduce the cost and the weight of
the PV/T system.
Figure 3 The solar radiation on solar cell surface for single-trough PV/T
system with full CPC at G=800 W/m2.
Figure 4 The solar radiation on solar cell surface for single-trough PV/T
with truncated 1/3 CPC at G=800 W/m2.
3518 Sun J et al. Sci China Ser E-Tech Sci | Dec. 2009 | vol. 52 | no. 12 | 3514-3520
Figure 5 shows the temperature variations of the main
components along the length of the system with and
without truncated CPC in the case of G＝600 W/m2,
m=0.01 kg/s·m2. It is obvious that the temperatures in-
crease along the length of the system, and the solar cell
temperature is higher than the others. Compared with the
system without the CPC, the temperature of the system
with the CPC is higher. The air stream temperature in-
creases quickly at the inlet region but slowly at the out-
let region, the temperature difference between the ab-
sorber panel and the air stream decreases with increasing
in the length of system. The predicted solar cell surface
temperature of 344 K (when the concentration ration is
1.0) is comparable to that reported by Garg et al.[4]. Un-
der the same operating conditions, Figure 6 presents the
variations of the electrical, thermal, exergy and system
efficiencies of the system with and without truncated
CPC in the length direction. It can be seen that the ther-
mal, exergy and system efficiencies increase along the
length direction, but the electrical efficiency decreases.
The combined efficiency of the system with CPC is al-
most 75% which is close to the value obtained by Oth-
man et al.[9]. The exergy efficiency of 17.6% of the sys-
tem with CPC is higher than that of non-concentrating
system, due to the increasing of temperature. The ob-
tained exergy efficiency of 16% of the non-concentrating
system is close to the value reported by Anand et al.[18].
Keeping the airflow rate and the solar incident intensity
unchanged, Figure 7 presents the solar cell packing fac-
tor effects on the performance of the PV/T system with
truncated CPC. It is indicated that the electrical effi-
ciency of the system increases with the increasing
Figure 5 Variation of temperature of solar pV/T system with and with-
out CPC.
 of packing fraction of the system, but the thermal and
system efficiency decreases. The exergy efficiency in-
creases slightly with the rise of the packing fraction.
Figure 8 shows the effects of the airflow rate on the
performance of the concentrating PV/T system. It can be
observed that the electrical, exergy, thermal and system
efficiencies increase with the increase of the air mass
flow rate. Increasing of the air mass flow rate will de-
crease the temperature of the system, thereby reducing
the heat loss from the system to the ambient. This will
increase the efficiency of the system, but the fan power
requirement increases too.
Figure 6 Variation of efficiency of solar PV/T system with and without
CPC. 7 Conclusions
The optical and electrical-thermal performances of the
PV/T system with truncated compound parabolic con-
centrator are simulated. The main conclusions are as
follows.
1) The solar radiation intensity at the solar cell sur-
face of the single-trough is almost 1200 W/m2 .The
truncated 1/3 reflector has little effect on the optical
performance compared with full reflector. Thus an effi-
cient method to reduce the material cost and the weight
of the concentration PV/T system can be developed.
2) The temperatures of the glass cover, solar cell, ab-
Figure 7 Variation of efficiency of solar PV/T system with different sorber panel and back plate of the solar concentrating
solar cell packing fraction. PV/T system increase along the length of the system,
and the temperatures of solar cell and absorber plate are
higher than others, and the temperature of glass cover is
the lowest. The temperatures of the system components
with CPC are higher than those without CPC.
3) The thermal, exergy and system efficiencies of the
PV/T system increase with increase of system length,
but the electrical efficiency decreases. The combined
efficiency of the system with CPC is almost 75% and
the exergy efficiency is 17.6% at G=600 W/m2. All effi-
ciencies of the hybrid photovoltaic and thermal system
increase with the increase of the air mass flow rate. The
thermal, exergy and electrical efficiencies of the system
Figure 8 The vaeration of efficiencies of the solar PV/T system for
with a CPC are higher than those of the system without
different air mass flow rate. CPC.

Sun J et al. Sci China Ser E-Tech Sci | Dec. 2009 | vol. 52 | no. 12 | 3514-3520 3519
 Nomenclature
A Area (m2) τ Transmitivity
−1 −1 Thermal conductivity
Cf Specific heat (J·kg ·K ) λ
(W·m·K−1)
−2
G Solar irradiance (W·m ) θ Acceptance angle (°)
T Temperature (K) δ Thickness (m)
L System length (m) η Efficiency (%)
W System width (m) Subscripts
U heat loss coefficient (W·m−2·K−1) a Ambient
−1
M Mass flux (kg·s ) b Back pate
V Wind velocity (m·s−1) c Convective
P Area of absorber covered by cells ct Top surface of absorber plate
Q Heat (W) cb Bottom surface of absorber plate
E Electrical energy (W) f Fin
H Height of the system (m) g Glass
h heat transfercoefficient (W·m−2·K−1) i Inlet
−1 −2
m Mass flow rate (kg·s m ) o Outlet
Greek letters p Absorber plate
ρ Reflectivity pv Solar cell
α Absorptivity R Reflector
r Radiative s Sky
ε Emissivity w Wind

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