Enhanced radiative cooling of solar cells by integration with heat pipe

Thermal management of solar cells is of vital importance to maintain adequate electrical efficiency. Lately, radiative cooling (RC) of solar cells has been researched extensively because of its passive nature and structural simplicity. However, commercial solar cells are usually encapsulated with highly emissive glass covers, and therefore the additional potential to reduce the cell temperature through RC is not significant. This study proposes a new system configuration to maximize the RC potential. It consists of a photovoltaic module for electricity generation, an RC module for heat removal to the sky, and a heat pipe for quick and efficient heat transfer between the two modules. A comparative analysis of temperature reduction and efficiency improvement between the proposed and previously studied systems is performed. The influence of input parameters (i.e., solar radiation, ambient temperature, wind speed, atmospheric emissivity, radiator length, and heat pipe resistance) on the system performance is also studied using COMSOL. Results show that in contrast to the conventional glass-coated module, the proposed system gives a maximum cell temperature reduction of 12.86 °C, which corresponds to a 7.25% relative rise in electrical efficiency. The new configuration's enhanced thermal performance supports it as an alternative to the glass-coated or ideally emissive photovoltaic modules. By addressing the challenge of limited radiative sky cooling, researchers can eventually move a step ahead and use this study for the thermal management of other devices and not just solar photovoltaics.