Performance of Hybrid Photovoltaic and Thermal (PV/T) Collector With and Without Electricity Generation

This paper presents the experimental results that involve the analysis of a photovoltaic and thermal (PV/T) hybrid collector, which has an integration of the photovoltaic cells and a solar thermal panel into one collector, by focusing on its thermal efficiency when both thermal and electrical energies are generated and when only thermal energy is generated. The experiment was performed at 4 different collector input temperatures, i.e., 12°C, 15°C, 20°C, and 25°C under the condition that the water flow rate was 4 l/min. We analyzed during the period of peak irradiation from 12:00 to 13:00 to obtain the semi-steady-state thermal performance. Besides, in order to remove the differences of the wind environment, the wind heat losses are calculated in the analysis. The result shows that the thermal efficiency of the PV/T collector decreases slightly when only thermal energy is generated as compared to that when both thermal and electrical energies are generated.