Basic Characteristics of a Compact PV/T Simulator

This paper presents the development and experimental results of photovoltaic and thermal hybrid (PV/T) simulator. The light source of the simulator consists of 16 halogen lamps with 4×4 arrangements. The PV/T collector is constructed from the mono-crystalline type of PV cell and backed by the 8 mm thick polyvinyl chloride (PVC) thermal collector. In order to understand and evaluate precise behavior of PV/T system, we applied 3 different mass flow rates; 200, 250, and 300 g/min. The result shows that the PV output behavior of the simulator for the radiation seems to be similar to that done under the sunlight experiment. At certain surface temperatures of PV, the collector thermal efficiency of PV/T system increases with the mass flow rate. This may be due to the internal heating of the PV cell.