Abstract
The analysis of solar still for mitigating freshwater and energy is the need of time as it will recede the reliance on fossil fuel and will support the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. In this work, the effect of various photovoltaic technologies on annual overall energy, exergy and environmental analyses of single slope solar still combined with N alike photovoltaic thermal compound parabolic concentrators is carried out. The considered photovoltaic materials are crystalline silicon (c-Si), polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si), amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium selenide. All concerned equations and data accessed from Indian Meteorological Department, Pune, India are provided as input to code in MATLAB. The in-depth analysis is done considering all different weather conditions in each month of a year for New Delhi. Concludingly, the highest value of freshwater yield, energy and exergy is obtained as 4538.75 kg/year, 3023.84 kWh/year and 315.57 kWh/year respectively considering poly-Si. The annual electrical energy, net energy and exergy are found to be highest as 161.05 kWh/year, 3444.87 kWh/year and 333.12 kWh/year considering c-Si. Furthermore, the most suitable PVT technology from sustainability aspect is found to be c-Si as the highest value of carbon credited is obtained as 9564.30 $ for c-Si PVT technology.
