What are the different cooling methods used in PV solar cells?

The cooling methods used are described under four broad categories: passive cooling techniques, active cooling techniques, PCM cooling, and PCM with additives. Many studies made a general review of the methods of cooling PV solar cells, especially the first three methods.

How to cool and clean solar panels?

1. It is possible to cool and clean the PV panels using the proposed cooling system in hot and dusty regions. 2. The cooling rate for the solar cells is 2 °C/min based on the concerned operating conditions, which means that the cooling system will be operated each time for 5 min, in order to decrease the module temperature by 10 °C.

How can photovoltaic panels be cooled?

Passive cooling of photovoltaic panels can be enhanced by additional components such as heat sinks, metallic materials such as fins installed on the back of P.V. to ensure convective heat transfer from air to panels . The high thermal conductive heat sinks are generally located behind the solar cell.

How to cool PV solar cells?

As we mentioned before, using the passive method in cooling the PV solar cells gives slight improvement results, so we resorted to using phase change materials (PCMs) to cool the PV cells. In the next section, we will review the most important researches that dealt with this topic.

What cooling methods are used for solar module cooling?

Egyptian researchers have analyzed all cooling techniques for solar module cooling. Their review includes passive and active cooling methods, cooling with phase change materials (PCMs), and cooling with PCM and other additives, such as nanoparticles or porous metal.

Does natural cooling improve the efficiency of PV solar cells?

This method is represented by natural cooling with water or with air and heat pipe, but it improves the efficiency of the PV cell by a small percentage. Tripanagnostopoulos and Themelis (2010) did three modules for cooling PV solar cells through natural air.