An expermental study of solar panel performance using heat pipe and thermoelectric generator

A system consisted of solar panel using a micro flat heat pipe (HP) and thermoelectric generator (TEG) is proposed and experimentally investigated in this paper to study its performance. In order to operate HP and TEG at highest possible efficiency, the condensation section of HP is innovatively cooled by utilizing the condensed water inside the evaporator of the air conditioner (which is usually between 5-7 °C). Two different types of silicon solar panel are used in this study, mono-and polycrystalline solar panel. The results showed that a reduction in average solar panel temperature up to 25% is obtained. In addition, the produced power was increased by as much as 50% when the solar panel was cooled by the heat pipe. Moreover, feasibility study and cost analyses are carried out by using SAM software to test the performance of the cooling system combined with the solar panel.