Modeling a passive cooling system for photovoltaic cells under concentration

An analysis of the Amonix high concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) passive cooling system was performed in order to obtain a better understanding of the present design and identify poor areas of dissipation. Cooling of photovoltaic tells under high intensity solar irradiance is a major concern when designing concentrating photovoltaic systems. Solar tell temperatures increase if the waste heat is not removed causing the cell voltage to decrease lowering the power generated. The concentrator geometry was studied so a model of the HCPV passive cooling system could be generated to analyze the system numerically. In addition to this experiments were conducted in the field and then used to compare with the numerical results. There was less than a 5% difference between both studies indicating that the numerical results were correct. This study provides beneficial information regarding areas of poor circulation with detailed descriptions about the temperature distributions and air velocity.