Exergy-based sustainability analysis of a dual fluid hybrid photovoltaic and thermal solar collector

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the exergetic sustainability index (SI) of a dual-fluid PV/T type solar collector that integrates both air and water into the same solar collector. The contribution of the exergy efficiency of each of the dual fluid PV/T collector's components to the overall sustainability of the whole system was analysed. A theoretical approach based on an experimentally validated numerical model was employed. The results show that the SI of the PV component of the dual fluid PV/T system is in general higher than the solar thermal component by approximately 9% since it is higher in quality. When evaluated under three different climatic conditions, the contribution of the thermal component as a cooling medium to the PV is only prominent in hot climates with SI higher by 4% compared to the stand-alone PV system. For the cool and cold temperate climates, the difference is less than 0.1%.