Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

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Energy and Buildings

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A heat pipe photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid system and its performance

evaluation
Shuang-Ying Wu a,b, , Qiao-Ling Zhang a,b , Lan Xiao a,b , Feng-Hua Guo a,b
a
b

Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400044, China
College of Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 17 May 2011
Received in revised form
15 September 2011
Accepted 18 September 2011
Keywords:
Heat pipe
Photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system
Thermalelectrical conversion
Exergy efciency
Performance evaluation
Theoretical analysis

a b s t r a c t
Building-integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) system has been considered as an attractive technology for building integration. The main part of a BIPV/T system is PV/T collector. In order to solve
the non-uniform cooling of solar PV cells and control the operating temperature of solar PV cells conveniently, a heat pipe photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid system (collector) has been proposed and
described by selecting a wick heat pipe to absorb isothermally the excessive heat from solar PV cells.
A theoretical model in terms of heat transfer process analysis in PV module panel and introducing the
effectivenessnumber of transfer unit (NTU) method in heat exchanger design was developed to predict the overall thermalelectrical conversion performances of the heat pipe PV/T system. A detailed
parametric investigation by varying relevant parameters, i.e., inlet water temperature, water mass ow
rate, packing factor of solar cell and heat loss coefcient has been carried out on the basis of the rst
and second laws of thermodynamics. Results show that the overall thermal, electrical and exergy efciencies of the heat pipe PV/T hybrid system corresponding to 63.65%, 8.45% and 10.26%, respectively
can be achieved under the operating conditions presented in this paper. The varying range of operating
temperature for solar cell on the absorber plate is less than 2.5 C. The heat pipe PV/T hybrid system is
viable and exhibits the potential and competitiveness over the other conventional BIPV/T systems.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With the development of energy-saving building technology,
building integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) system has been
considered as an attractive technology for building integration and
has the potential to become a major source of renewable energy in
the urban environment [1]. BIPV/T system produces thermal and
electrical energy, which has higher overall output than that of two
separated PV and solar thermal systems and potentially reduces
the effective system costs in comparison with the stand-alone PV
system [2]. Besides, the merit of a PV/T system lies in the reduction
of the demands on physical space and the equipment cost through
the use of common frames and brackets [3].
The main part of a BIPVT system is PV/T collector. Up to date,
many PV/T systems (collectors) have been designed to remove the
waste heat and used as a source of energy for building applications. Recently, there are many rigorous review articles such as
[48] available that study the systems or market. From the review
results, one can conclude that a signicant amount of research and

Corresponding author at: College of Power Engineering, Chongqing University,

Chongqing 400044, China. Tel.: +86 013657693789; fax: +86 23 65102473.
E-mail address: shuangyingwu@yahoo.com.cn (S.-Y. Wu).
0378-7788/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2011.09.017

development work on the PV/T technology has been conducted in

the last more than 30 years with a gradual increase in the level
of activities. Performance of hybrid PV/T systems has been studied
both experimentally and numerically using either steady state or
dynamic models. Nayak and Tiwari [9] predicted the performance
of a PV/T collector integrated with a greenhouse by means of energy
and exergy analysis and made an attempt to validate the developed
thermal model with experimental values for a typical day for clear
day conditions. Dubey et al. [10] derived the performance analytical
expressions for N hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) air collectors
connected in series. And the detailed performance evaluation of
energy, exergy and electrical energy by varying the number of collectors and air velocity considering four weather conditions and
ve different cities of India has been carried out by considering
two different cases. Sarhaddi et al. [11] gave a detailed energy and
exergy analysis to calculate the thermal and electrical parameters,
exergy components and exergy efciency of a typical PV/T air collector, and improved the thermal model and electrical model of a
PV/T air collector. In addition, a modied equation for the exergy
efciency of a PV/T air collector was obtained in terms of design
and climatic parameters. Corbin and Zhai [12] developed an experimentally validated computational uid dynamics (CFD) model for
a novel BIPV/T collector. Besides, they have investigated the effect
of active heat recovery by a liquid cooled heat absorber on the

S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

Nomenclature
Ac
Acell
Acoll
Cp
D
Exsol
Exth
G
Io
Le
Lc
N
NTU
Nu
Pr
Re
rc
S
Ta
Tb
Tcell
Thp
Ti
T0
Tsun
Tref
Uc
UL
W

heat exchange area between heated uid and the

condenser section of heat pipe, m2
solar cell surface area, m2
PV panel area, m2
constant pressure specic heat capacity, J kg1 K1
heat pipe diameter, m
exergy of heat radiation, W
thermal exergy, W
mass ow rate, kg/s
solar intensity, W/m
length of heat pipe evaporator section, m
length of heat pipe condenser section, m
row number of solar cell
number of heat transfer unit
Nusselt number
Prandtl number
Reynolds number
packing factor
absorbed solar energy intensity, W/m
ambient temperature, C
wall temperature of PV panel region, C
solar cell temperature, C
working uid temperature of heat pipe, C
heated uid inlet temperature, C
heated uid outlet temperature, C
sun temperature, K
reference operating temperature, C
heat convection coefcient, W m2 K1
overall heat loss coefcient, W m2 K1
pitch distance between the heat pipes, m

Greek symbols

absorptivity

absorber plate thickness, m


thermal conductivity, W m1 K1

transmissivity of glass cover; local time, h

heat transfer effectiveness

pvt
exergy efciency
efciency of solar cell photovoltaic transformation
cell
e
electrical efciency
ref
cell efciency at the reference operating temperature Tref
t
thermal efciency

performance of a BIPV/T collector and established the correlations

between PV performance and heat recovery.
There are alternative approaches in PV/T integration. Among
many others, there can be selections among air, water or evaporative collectors, at-plate or concentrator types, natural or forced
uid ow, standalone or building-integrated features, etc., which
formed a series of the conventional PV/T systems. In general, two
types of PV/T system have been considered, i.e. tube-in-plate conguration and parallel plate conguration [4].
For the existing PV/T systems, a cavity created by a solar PV panel
with rows of PV module on it and a glass cover is one of an important
part of system components. The cooling (heated) medium generally ows beneath the solar PV panel and absorbs the excessive
heat by convection. Either air or water is usually selected as the
cooling (heated) medium. However, it should be noted that the
cooling (heated) medium absorbs heat from solar PV panels during the ow process, which may cause the temperature variation
of PV panel. Due to the distinctive feature of solar radiation and

3559

the complexity of the internal heat transfer (there is heat conduction, convection and radiation heat transfer) in PV/T systems,
the temperature of solar PV panel should not be uniform, i.e. the
temperature of solar PV panel increases along the uid owing
direction, leading to non-uniform cooling of solar PV cells, which
is unfavorable of photoelectric conversion efciency enhancement;
meanwhile, owing to the inhomogeneity of the temperature of solar
PV cells, it is inconvenient for temperature control. For these reasons, a heat pipe PV/T hybrid system has been put forward in this
paper. For one thing, it can make full use of the isothermal performance and adjustable operating temperature of the heat pipe; for
another, it takes advantage of efcient heat transfer performance of
heat pipe. Such a PV/T hybrid system not only ensures the temperature of solar PV panel uniform thus improving the photoelectric
conversion performance, but also makes the operating temperature
of solar PV cells adjustable. Recently, Pei et al. [13] have designed
a heat pipe PV/T system that can be used in cold regions without
freezing when compared with the traditional water-type PV/T system. A dynamic model was developed to predict the performances
of the heat-pipe PV/T system through simulation and experimental
studies.
Different from the heat pipes stalled between the PV module
rows and having different diameters of evaporator and condenser
sections in [13], in this paper, a heat pipe PV/T hybrid system
with heat pipe arranged beneath the PV module rows and having same diameters of evaporator and condenser sections will be
introduced. Meantime, unlike the method employed in [13], a heat
transfer model for performance evaluation of PV/T system will be
established through theoretical analysis. Also, impact of relevant
parameters on the thermalelectrical conversion performance will
be discussed in detail. The present work contributes further information on the innovation and performance evaluation of BIPV/T
system.

2. System descriptions
A wick heat pipe PV/T system is proposed in this paper, and
its principle diagram is shown in Fig. 1. The main information on
the design and construction is summarized here. The glass cover
(7#), glass side seal (6#) and solar PV panel (2#) form a closed
space. All solar PV modules (1#) are laid on the solar PV panel in
rectangular arrangement; below which the wick heat pipe evaporator section is closely attached using excellent thermal conductivity
material (3#). Insulation materials in evaporator section (5#) are
coated around the wick heat pipe (4#) to minimize heat loss. If
the cooling (heated) medium is gas such as air, the outer surface
of the wick heat pipe condenser section can be equipped with
radial ns (11#) for heat transfer enhancement. The wick heat
pipe adiabatic section is set between the evaporator and condenser
sections, around which is also furnished with insulation materials (8#). The wick heat pipe condenser section is arranged in the
cooling (heated) uid channel (12#). The cooling (heated) uid
ows into/out of the cooling (heated) uid channel through cooling
(heated) uid inlet/outlet header (13#, 10#) and cooling (heated)
uid inlet/outlet pipe (14#, 9#).
The wick heat pipe PV/T system works in the following manner.
The solar insulation enters into the closed space composed by glass
cover, glass side seal and solar PV panel, and heat up the solar PV
modules and the solar PV panel. On the one hand, solar PV modules
absorb some of the solar energy and transform it into electricity;
on the other hand, the solar PV panel is heated along with some
heat loss by the way of convection and radiation. Once the solar
PV panel is heated, most of the energy is transferred by conduction
to the high thermal conductivity material which connects the solar
PV panel and wick heat pipe evaporator section, and then the wall

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S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

Fig. 2. The calculation model of heat pipe PV/T system.

Fig. 3. Temperature variation of heated uid in the condenser section of heat pipe.

Fig. 1. The scheme of wick heat pipe photovoltaicthermal (PVT) hybrid system.
(1) Solar PV modules; (2) solar PV panel; (3) thermal conductivity material; (4) wick
heat pipe; (5) insulation material in evaporator section; (6) glass side seal; (7) glass
cover; (8) insulation material in adiabatic section; (9) cooling (heated) uid outlet
pipe; (10) cooling (heated) uid outlet header; (11) radial ns; (12) cooling (heated)
uid channel; (13) cooling (heated) uid inlet header; and (14) cooling (heated) uid
inlet pipe.

of wick heat pipe evaporator section. Inside the wick heat pipe, the
liquid medium is vaporized by the intense heat transferred from
the wall of evaporator section by convection. The generated vapor
moves toward the wick heat pipe condenser section, where it gives
out the evaporation latent heat. The resulting liquid is returned to
the evaporator passively by gravity and/or capillary forces in distributed wick, and re-absorbs heat for repeating evaporation. In the
mean time, the cooling (heated) uid ows into the cooling (heated)
uid channel through cooling (heated) uid inlet header and pipe,
absorbing the heat released from the wick heat pipe condenser section by forced convection, and nally ows out through the cooling
(heated) uid outlet header and pipe when the outow reaches a
certain temperature.
3. Theoretical model and its derivation
3.1. Theoretical model
The calculation model of a heat pipe PV/T hybrid system is
shown in Fig. 2. N row of solar cells are attached to top surface
of an absorber plate with thickness , forming the PV panel. The
backside of the PV panel is soldered with N row of wick heat pipes
and a thermal insulation layer is added underneath. Acell is solar cell
surface area and the ratio of cell area to PV panel area, which is also
named as packing factor, is rc . The ambient temperature is Ta . Solar
intensity is Io , while the solar energy intensity absorbed by PV panel
is S (without glass cover: S = Io ; with glass cover: S = Io (), where

is absorptivity of solar cell and is assumed to be equal to that of

PV panel,  is transmissivity of glass cover. This study will discuss
the case with glass cover). The evaporator sections with length Le
of the wick heat pipes are welded to PV panel. The condenser sections with length Lc of the wick heat pipes are immersed in a cooling
manifold. The pitch distance between the heat pipes is W, the heat
pipe diameter is D. The PV panel and heat pipe are made of copper, and the thermal conductivity is . The left and right sides of PV
panel are adiabatic walls, which contain point B0 and A0 . The wall
temperature of each PV panel region A1 B1 , A2 B2 , A3 B3 , . . .. . .,
AN BN is assumed to be uniform, which are Tb1 , Tb2 , Tb3 , . . .. . ., TbN ,
respectively. All these temperatures are unknown and require to be
solved. The temperature of each row of solar cell, which are Tcell,1 ,
Tcell,2 , Tcell,3 , . . .. . . and Tcell,N , is also uniform. If the solar cells are
well connected to the PV panel, the assumption that Tcell,1 Tb1 ,
Tcell,2 Tb2 , Tcell,3 Tb3 , . . .. . . and Tcell,N TbN is reasonable.
As shown in Fig. 3, the heated uid ows in succession through
the condenser sections from the 1st heat pipe to the Nth one in a
crosswise manner. The heated uid outlet temperature of the rst
condenser section equals to the heated uid inlet temperature of
the second one, and so on. The heated uid inlet temperature of
collector is Ti , which is a known quantity.
3.2. Theoretical derivation
In order to write the energy balance equation for each region of
PV panel as shown in Fig. 2, the following assumptions have been
made:
The system is in quasi-steady-state condition.
Because the thickness of PV panel is much less than the width,
the temperature variation along the thickness of PV panel is negligible.
Considering the uniformity of heat pipe operating temperature,
the temperature gradient of the PV panel along the axial direction
of heat pipe is negligible.
There is a neglected thermal conduction resistance between PV
panel and heat pipe wall due to a good thermal conductivity of
lling materials.
As described in [14], the overall heat loss coefcient UL between
the PV panel and the ambient is assumed to be constant.

S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

Fig. 4. The element control volume in solar PV panel.

The PV panel is well insulated and the heat loss from insulation
is neglected. In the meantime, both end sides of the PV panel are
adiabatic.
In view of the above assumptions, the heat transfer process in
the regions B0 A1 , B1 A2 , B2 A3 , . . .. . ., BN A0 of PV panel is
similar to the heat conduction problem of a n. In addition, the
solar cell surface area Acell is regarded as DLe for simplicitys sake.
3.2.1. The region B0 A1
The heat transfer process in the region B0 A1 of PV panel can be
considered as one-dimensional steady-state heat conduction of a
n with width of (W D)/2. As shown in Fig. 4, a differential element
with width of dx is taken to analyze the energy balance. The length
of PV panel along the axial direction of heat pipe is set to be 1.
The net input heat rate from the solar irradiation Qnet is
Qnet = qnet dx = [S UL (T Ta )]dx

Qx + Qnet = Qx+dx

(2)

Based on the Fouriers law of heat conduction, Eq. (2) becomes

d2 T
S UL (T Ta )
=0
+

dx2

(3)

The general solution of Eq. (3) is:

T = C0,1 exp (mx) + C0,2 exp (mx) +

S
+ Ta
UL

(4)

UL /.
where C0,1 and C0,2 are integration constants, m =
The boundary conditions (the point B0 is located at x = 0) are:


dT 

dx

x=0


= 0, T 

= Tb1

(5)

Tb1 (S/UL + Ta )
2ch(mH/2)

(6)

x=(W D)/2

Therefore
C0,1 = C0,2 =

T=

ch(mH/2)

Tb1

S

UL

+ Ta



S
+ Ta
UL

(7)

The heat ow rate, which enters into the vertical plane that
contains point A1 by conduction is:
QA1


dT 
= Le

dx

x=H/2

C1,1 = Tb1 C1,2

C1,2

1
HLe F[S UL (Tb1 Ta )]
2

S

UL

+ Ta ;

[T (S/UL + Ta )] exp (mH)

[T (S/UL + Ta )]
= b1
b2
2sh(mH)
2sh(mH)

(8)

where F is the standard n efciency for straight ns with rectanth(mH/2)

gular prole, and obtained from F = mH/2 .

(9)

The heat ow rate into the vertical plane that contains point B1
is:
QB1 = Le

dT 
S
 = mLe Tb1 2C1,2 U Ta
dx x=0
L


(10)

On the other hand, according to temperature distribution in the

region B1 A2 of PV panel, the heat ow rate out of the vertical
plane that contains point A2 is
QA2 = Le

dT 

dx x=W D

= mLe [C1,1 exp (mH) C1,2 exp (mH)]

(11)

3.2.3. The region A1 B1 of the rst row of solar cell

The gained solar energy in the region A1 B1 of solar cell is:
QA1 B1 = Acell,1 [S UL (Tb1 Ta )]

(12)

The useful energy obtained by the rst heat pipe is:

Qhp1 = GCp (T01 Ti )

(13)

where G is mass ow rate of heated uid owing through the

condenser of heat pipe; Cp is the specic heat capacity of heated
uid at constant pressure; T01 is heated uid outlet temperature of
the rst heat pipe.
The electricity energy transformed by the rst row of solar cell
is [15]
Ecell,1 = cell,1 Acell,1 S = Acell,1 Io ()ref [1 T (Tcell,1 Tref )]

(14)

where Acell,1 is the rst row of solar cell surface areas; Tcell,1 is the
rst row of solar cell temperature; cell,1 is the efciency of solar
cell photovoltaic transformation; and ref is the cell efciency at
the reference operating temperature Tref .
The energy balance in the region A1 B1 of the rst row of solar
cell is

 
 
QA  + QA B + QB1  = Qhp1 + Ecell,1
1
1 1

where H = W D = (1 rc )W.
Substituting Eq. (6) into (4), Eq. (4) becomes:


ch(mx)

3.2.2. The region B1 A2

With the heated uid ows in succession through the condenser
of the 1st heat pipe to the Nth one, the temperature gradually goes
up. Accordingly, the working uid temperature of heat pipe rises
up, from Thp1 to Thpn . Heat ow directions of the regions B1 A2 ,
B2 A3 , B3 A4 , . . .. . ., BN1 AN are reverse to +x axes. In like manner, the heat transfer process in the region B1 A2 of PV panel can
be considered as one dimension steady-state thermal conduction
problem of a n with width of (W D). Thermal conduction equation is the same as Eq. (3), the boundary conditions (the point B1 is
located at x = 0) are x = 0, T = Tb1 ; x = W D, T = Tb2 . The integration
constants of Eq. (4) are

(1)

where qnet is the net input heat ux; UL is the PV panel overall heat
loss coefcient.
According to heat transfer analysis of B0 A1 region, the heat
transfer direction is parallel to +x axes, thus the energy balance of
the element control volume in B0 A1 region is

3561

(15)

Then the following equation can be obtained,

1
2

HLe F[S UL (Tb1 Ta )] + Acell,1 [S UL (Tb1 Ta )]

+ mLe Tb1 2C1,2

S
Ta
UL

= GCP (T01 Ti )

+ Acell,1 Sref [1 T (Tcell,1 Tref )]

Eq. (16) contains unknown temperature Tb1 , Tb2 , T01 .

(16)

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S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

3.2.4. The region An Bn of the nth (n = 2, 3, 4, . . .. . ., N 1) row

of solar cell
For the region An Bn of the nth (n = 2, 3, 4, . . .. . ., N 1) row of
solar cell, the heat transfer process of each region is the same. Like
the analysis of the region A1 B1 , we also have

mLe

S
Tbn 2Cn,2
Ta
UL

+ Acell,n [S UL (Tbn Ta )]

= GCP (T0n T0(n1) ) + mLe [Cn1,1 exp (mH)

Cn1,2 exp (mH)] + Acell,n Sref [1 T (Tcell,n Tref )]
where
C(n1),1 = Tb(n1) C(n1),2

Cn1,2 =

S
UL

+ Ta

[Tb(n1) (S/UL + Ta )] exp (mH)

2sh(mH)

(17)

(17a)

[Tbn (S/UL + Ta )]
2sh(mH)
(17b)

[Tb(n+1) (S/UL + Ta )]
[Tbn (S/UL + Ta )] exp (mH)

2sh(mH)
2sh(mH)

Cn,2 =

(17c)
n (2, 3, 4, 5, . . . . . . , N 1).

3.2.5. The region AN BN of the Nth row of solar cell

Since the analysis method in the region AN BN of the Nth row
of solar cell is almost the same as region A1 B1 of the rst row of
solar cell except for different boundary conditions, thus neglected
for brevitys sake. The right side surface of PV panel is adiabatic. The
boundary conditions (the point BN is located at x = 0) are:
x=0

dT 
=0

dx x=(W D)/2

= TbN ;

(18)

Therefore, the integration constants of Eq. (4) general solution

are:
CN,1 =

TbN (S/UL + Ta )
;
1 + exp (mH)

CN,2 = TbN CN,1

S

UL

+ Ta

(19)

The heat ow rate enters into the vertical plane that contains
point BN is:
QBN = Le

dT 
 = mLe (CN,1 CN,2 )
dx x=0

(20)

The energy balance equation for the region AN BN of the Nth

row of solar cell is:

 
QBN  + QA

N BN

1 = 1 exp (NTUc1 );

= QAN  + QhpN + Ecell,N

QhpN = GCp (T0N T0(N1) )

(21)

(22)

mLe 2CN,1 TbN

(24)

T01 = Ti + [1 exp (NTUc1 )](Tc,01 Ti )

(25)

where Tc,01 is the working uid temperature of the rst heat pipe
condenser section and equal to the working uid temperature of
the rst heat pipe Thp1 . Considering that phase change heat transfer
coefcient of heat pipe is rather high, and the temperature difference of phase change heat transfer is much smaller than that
of single phase convection heat transfer, namely, Tc,01 = Thp1 Tb1 .
Therefore, Eq. (25) may be rearranged in the following form:
T01 = Ti + [1 exp (NTUc1 )](Tb1 Ti )

(26)

T0n = T0(n1) + [1 exp (NTUcn )](Tbn T0(n1) )

n = 1 exp (NTUcn );

CN1,2 exp (mH)] + Acell,N Sref [1 T (Tcell,N Tref )]

(23)

It is obvious that Eq. (23) contains unknown temperature Tb(N1) ,

TbN , T0(N1) and T0N .

Acn Uc,0n
GCP

(28)

1 = 2 = 3 = 4 = . . . = n =

(29)

From Eq. (26) to (29), the following equations are obtained:

T01 = Ti + (Tb1 Ti ) = Tb1 + (1 )Ti

(30)

T02 = Tb2 + (1 )Tb1 + (1 ) Ti

(31)

T0n = Ti (1 )n + (1 )n1 Tb1 + (1 )n2 Tb2

+ . . . + (1 )Tb(n1) + Tbn

(32)

where n (2, 3, 4, . . . . . . , N).

According to the analysis of the relation T0n with Tbn , it is shown
that Eqs. (16), (17) and (23) consist of N equations which contain N unknown quantities. Obviously, closed form solutions can
be obtained from these equations. Namely, we can gain the temperature Tb1 (Tcell,1 ), Tb2 (Tcell,2 ), Tb3 (Tcell,3 ), . . .. . ., TbN (Tcell,N ) of
region A1 B1 , A2 B2 , A3 B3 ,. . .. . ., AN BN of PV panel. Meanwhile, we can nd out the heated uid outlet temperature of each
heat pipe T01 , T02 , T03 , . . .. . ., T0N . Further, the thermal efciency of
the PV/T system t can be calculated as
t =

GCp (T0N Ti )
Io Acoll

(33)

where Acoll is area of PV panel, Acoll = NWLe .

The electrical efciency of PV/T system e can be expressed as

N

= GCp (T0N T0(N1) ) + mLe [CN1,1 exp (mH)

NTUcn =

It is assumed that each heat pipe is the same, namely Acn = Ac1 ,
Uc,01 = Uc,0n , we have

e =

+ Acell,N [S UL (TbN Ta )]

(27)

Again,

Combining Eqs. (20)(22) leads to:

S
+
+ Ta
UL

Ac1 Uc,01
GCP

where Uc,01 is heat convection coefcient between heated uid

and the condenser section of heat pipe, it can be obtained from
Nu = 0.26Re0.6 Pr1/3 [16]; Ac1 is the heat exchange area between
heated uid and the condenser section of heat pipe.
From the denition 1 = (T01 Ti )/(Tc,01 Ti ), we have

The useful energy gained by the Nth heat pipe is:

NTUc1 =

For the nth heat pipe (n = 2, 3, 4, . . ., N),

It should be noted that Tb(n1) is the region An1 Bn1 temperature of PV panel; Tbn is the region An Bn temperature of PV
panel; Tb(n+1) is the region An+1 Bn+1 temperature of PV panel;
T0(n-1) is heated uid inlet temperature of the nth heat pipe; T0n
is heated uid outlet temperature of the nth heat pipe. Eq. (17)
contains unknown temperature Tb(n1) , Tbn , Tb(n+1) , T0(n1) , T0n .


T

3.2.6. The relation T0n with Tbn

Take the rst heat pipe for an example, the heat transfer effectiveness 1 and the number of heat transfer unit NTUc1 are dened
as

E
n=1 cell,n
Io Acoll

N


SAcell,n
n=1 cell,n
Io Acoll

N
n=1

(cell,n rc ) (34)

Moreover, the energy of a PV/T system consists of two major

components namely electrical energy and thermal energy which
are not essentially the same in nature, even if these two energy
types should be of the same quantity and measured by the same
unit, the amount of work transformed from them to the outside
world is not the same, taking the fact that work is a process of

S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

3563

energy transfer during which the energy does not degrade [17].
Thermal energy (low grade) cannot produce work until a temperature difference exists between a heat source and a heat sink,
whereas electrical energy (high grade) can completely transform
into work irrespective of the environment [3]. Hence, the rst
law approach may not be comprehensive in the assessment of the
hybrid energy performance. At this end, the exergy efciency from
the second law perspective offers a qualitative and standardized
evaluation of the hybrid performance.
In evaluating the performance of solar energy system using the
exergy analysis, different methods to determine the exergy of radiation have been put forward in a period of around 20 years [18].
Based on the analysis of heat engine, Jeter [19] has come to the
result that the exergy of heat radiation is determined by the Carnot
efciency, i.e.
Exsol =

Ta
Tsun

Io Acoll

(35)

where the sun temperature Tsun is typically regarded as 6000 K [8].

The thermal exergy gained by the water ow through PV/T
hybrid system is evaluated by

Exth = GCp T0N Ti Ta ln

T

0N



(36)

Ti

Thus, the exergy efciency of PV/T hybrid system neglecting

pressure drop exergy loss is determined as
pvt =

Exth +

N

E
n=1 cell,n

(37)

Exsol

4. Validation of theoretical model

In order to validate the present model and in view of the lack
of the experimental data of heat pipe PV/T hybrid system, taking
a heat pipe at plate solar collector for an example, a comparison
between the theoretical and experimental results of thermal performance is given. It is worth noting that, the heat pipe at plate
solar collector has no solar cells in comparison with the heat pipe
PV/T hybrid system, and solar cell-related terms disappear in the
presented model. Herein, a heat pipe at plate solar collector which
has the same structure and operation parameters as [20] is selected
as an object (the number of heat pipe is 14). Under certain weather
conditions, the theoretical and experimental results of thermal performance are demonstrated in Figs. 5 and 6. In order to compare the
calculated results with the experimental values, a root mean square
percentage deviation (RMS) has been evaluated by the following
equation [21,22].

RMS =

[100 (Xexp,i Xcal,i )/Xexp,i ]

n

(38)

where n is the number of the experiments implemented; Xexp,i and

Xcal,i denote the experimental and calculated values, respectively.
Fig. 5 shows the theoretical water outlet temperatures VS
the experimental values in [20] when the water ow rate
G = 0.0458 kg/s. As can be seen, there is a good agreement between
the calculated and experimental values of the water outlet temperature and thermal efciency with RMS = 0.24% and 4.33%,
respectively. Identically, Fig. 6 compares the theoretical water outlet temperature with the experimental values in [20] at another
solar intensity when the water ow rate G = 0.0125 kg/s. Again, it
is observed that there is a fair agreement between the calculated
and experimental values of water outlet temperature and collector
thermal efciency with RMS = 0.64% and 3.89%, respectively, i.e.,
minor relative deviation exists between the two.
According to the above analysis, good agreements have been
found in the theoretical and experimental results, especially the

Fig. 5. The comparison between the theoretical and experimental values of thermal
performance for heat pipe at plate solar collector in [20] at G = 0.0458 kg/s.

water outlet temperature. This indicates that the theoretical

method proposed in this paper is effective, and can be used in the
performance evaluation of heat pipe PV/T hybrid system.
5. Results and discussion
In this study, the following parameters have been chosen for
the solar cells: ref = 0.12, T = 0.0045 C1 , Tref = 25 C. Besides, the
conguration parameters of heat pipe PV/T system are taken as follows: The heat pipe was made of copper with total length of 0.92 m
and outer diameter D of 0.122 m. The length of evaporator section
Le is 0.75 m and the length of condenser section Lc is 0.1 m. The
pitch distance between the heat pipes W is 0.135 m. The glass cover
plate was sized in 0.76 m 1.9 m 0.004 m, of which the transmittance  is 0.9. The PV panel of 1.89 m 0.75 m was made of copper
and was coated with anodic alumina spectral selective absorption material of which the absorptivity is 0.94. The condenser
section of heat pipe was immersed in the heated uid channel
of 1.9 m 0.288 m 0.1 m. The heated uid, namely water orderly
ows over the condenser section of the heat pipe in a crosswise
manner. Initial solar cell temperature distributions were assumed
for PV panel, then the GaussSeidel iteration method was adopted
to solve the above mentioned N equations, and the calculation
results are described as follows.
Fig. 7 shows hourly variations of ambient temperature Ta , solar
radiation intensity Io and the outlet water temperature T0N for
G = 0.05 kg/s, rc = 0.9 and Ti = 37 C. It can be seen that the outlet

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S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

Fig. 8. The variation of solar cell temperature with row number at different local
times.

Fig. 6. The comparison between the theoretical and experimental values of thermal
performance for heat pipe at plate solar collector in [20] at G = 0.0125 kg/s.

water temperature varies from a minimum of 38.85 C to a maximum of 40.36 C at 15:00 and 11:00, respectively.
Fig. 8 gives the variation of solar cell temperature Tcell with
the solar cell row number N at the weather conditions shown in
Fig. 7, where it is seen that the solar cell temperature increases
with increasing solar cell row number. Also, during the local
time of 10:0015:00, the variations of solar cell temperature with
row number are 49.6251.53 C, 51.2053.35 C, 50.7052.77 C,
48.0449.72 C, 47.2648.82 C and 44.8246.01 C. That is to say,
the varying range of solar cell temperature is less than 2.5 C, which

Fig. 7. Hourly variations of ambient temperature, solar radiation intensity and the
outlet water temperature at G = 0.05 kg/s, rc = 0.9 and Ti = 37 C.

indicates that the heat pipe cooling can make the temperature of
solar cells on the absorber plate uniform. In addition, the solar cell
temperature reaches a minimum at 15:00 and a maximum at 11:00.
These observations are attributed to the hourly variation of solar
radiation intensity.
Figs. 9 and 10 demonstrate the effects of inlet water temperature Ti on solar cell temperature Tcell , the thermal, electrical and
exergy efciencies. It is evident that the solar cell temperature
increases with the increase of inlet water temperature and the inlet
water temperature has a great effect on solar cell temperature.
Further, it is to be noted that the thermal and electrical efciencies decrease with increasing the inlet water temperature, while
the exergy efciency increases. When the inlet water temperature
increases from 33 C, 37 C to 41 C, the electrical efciency ranges
between 8.16 and 8.45%, 8.05 and 8.33%, and 7.92 and 8.21%, respectively, which is due to the fact that the photovoltaic transformation
of solar cell decreases on account of solar cell temperature increases
as expected. Also, the thermal efciency ranges between 59.1 and
63.3%, 56.1 and 59.2%, and 50.8 and 55.8%, respectively. This might
be because of the fact that the increasing rate of the outlet water
temperature is less than that of the inlet water temperature. However, with the increment of inlet water temperature, the grade
of thermal energy rises and the thermal exergy gained by water
increases although the heat quantity gained by water decreases,
which will improve the overall exergy efciency of PV/T hybrid
system. In view of this, the overall exergy efciency is of the order
of 8.439.20%, 9.119.78% and 9.6710.26%, respectively, when the
inlet water temperature varies from 33 C, 37 C to 41 C.
The effects of water mass ow rate G on solar cell temperature
Tcell , the thermal, electrical and exergy efciencies are illustrated

Fig. 9. The variation of solar cell temperature with row number at different inlet
water temperatures.

S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

Fig. 10. Hourly variations of the thermal, electrical and exergy efciencies with the
local time at different inlet water temperatures.

in Figs. 11 and 12. They indicate that there is a decrease in solar

cell temperature with increase of the water mass ow rate as
expected. The solar cell temperature ranges between 51.15 and
53.49 C, 48.04 and 49.72 C, and 46.31 and 47.63 C corresponding to the water mass ow rate of 0.03 kg/s, 0.05 kg/s and 0.07 kg/s,
respectively. In this case too, one can observe that the thermal and
electrical efciencies become higher when the water mass ow
rate increases. The electrical efciency is 7.868.23%, 8.058.33%
and 8.158.39%, respectively. This is due to the fact that the
heat removal from solar cell is more and temperature of solar
cell decreases when the water mass ow rate increases. On the

Fig. 11. The variation of solar cell temperature with row number at different water
mass ow rates.

3565

Fig. 12. Hourly variations of the thermal, electrical and exergy efciencies with the
local time at different water mass ow rates.

other hand, the thermal efciency is 51.954.8%, 56.159.2% and

58.461.7%, respectively. The increasing water mass ow rate tends
to obtain higher thermal efciency. This can be attributed to the fact
that the increasing water mass ow rate results in the reduction of
the outlet water temperature. However, the decreasing rate of the
outlet water temperature is lower than the increasing rate of water
mass ow rate; hence more heat is absorbed by water which leads
to the increase in thermal efciency. Although the grade of thermal energy goes down as the increasing of water mass ow rate,
the overall exergy efciency which combines the effect of electrical
output increasing still rises, namely, the overall exergy efciency
is 9.069.66%, 9.119.78% and 9.159.86%, respectively. Obviously,
the inuence of water mass ow rate on the thermal and electrical
efciencies is greater than that on the overall exergy efciency.
Figs. 13 and 14 represent the plots of solar cell temperature
Tcell , the thermal, electrical and exergy efciencies against solar
cell row number N and the local time  for different packing factors rc . Apparently, by increasing packing factor from 0.7 to 0.9,
the solar cell temperature decreases. For different packing factor,
the solar cell temperature varies in the range of 48.2250.10 C,
48.1249.94 C and 48.0449.72 C, respectively, showing the packing factor has very small effect on the solar cell temperature
with the variation of less than 2 C. From Fig. 14, it can be seen
that the electrical efciency increases and the thermal efciency
decreases with increasing packing factor. When the packing factor
varies from 0.7, 0.8 to 0.9, the electrical efciency is 6.226.45%,
7.127.37% and 8.058.33% respectively. Again, the thermal efciency is 57.560.6%, 56.859.9% and 56.159.2%, respectively.

3566

S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

Fig. 13. The variation of solar cell temperature with row number at different packing
factors.

Fig. 15. The variation of solar cell temperature with row number at different heat
loss coefcients.

Clearly, a signicant increase in the system electrical efciency

is noticed with the same increase of the packing factor. This is
due to the fact that the net thermal energy available to the system decreases on account of the decreased area exposed to the
incident solar radiation. At the same time, the outlet water temperature decreases with increasing packing factor as expected. Thus,
the lower water temperature is responsible for the decreased thermal exergy gain. On the other hand, the increasing rate of electrical
output is greater than the decreasing rate of thermal exergy, one
can observe that the overall exergy efciency becomes higher for

increased packing factor. The packing factor varying from 0.7, 0.8
to 0.9 is corresponding to the order of the overall exergy efciency
as 7.177.88%, 8.128.82% and 9.119.78%, respectively.
From Fig. 15, it is clear that the solar cell temperature Tcell
is lower when the heat loss coefcient UL increases as expected.
The solar cell temperature varies in the range of 48.8850.78 C,
48.2349.95 C and 47.6449.21 C with respect to the heat loss
coefcient as 6 W/m2 K, 8 W/m2 K and 10 W/m2 K, respectively.
Accordingly, the electrical efciency is 7.998.30%, 8.048.32%
and 8.078.35%, whereas the thermal efciency is 61.2963.65%,
57.2460.20% and 53.5557.10%, respectively, as shown in Fig. 16,

Fig. 14. Hourly variations of the thermal, electrical and exergy efciencies with the
local time at different packing factors.

Fig. 16. Hourly variations of the thermal, electrical and exergy efciencies with the
local time at different heat loss coefcients.

S.-Y. Wu et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 35583567

which indicates that larger heat loss coefcient is benecial to the

electrical output and disadvantageous to the improvement of thermal performance. However, it is also important to note that there is
only a small increase in the electrical efciency for increasing heat
loss coefcient. While one can observe that the heat loss coefcient
has a relatively great effect on the thermal efciency. As a result,
it can be concluded that the variation of overall exergy efciency
is mainly determined by that of thermal exergy gained by water.
When the heat loss coefcient increases, the heat gained by water
becomes less and the grade of thermal energy declines simultaneously. It follows that the thermal exergy gained by water is on
the decrease, which will lead to the decrease of the overall exergy
efciency. And this is actually the truth, because when the heat
loss coefcient varies from 6 W/m2 K, 8 W/m2 K to 10 W/m2 K, the
overall exergy efciency obtained from Fig. 16 becomes from 9.13
to 9.87%, 9.12 to 9.80% and 9.11 to 9.74%, respectively. Compared
with the effects of the heat loss coefcient on the thermal and electrical efciencies, weaker impact on the overall exergy efciency is
found.
6. Conclusions
In this study, a heat pipe PV/T hybrid system is proposed.
The proposed system is an attractive PV/T system that can make
full use of the isothermal performance and adjustable operating
temperature of the heat pipe and exhibits a great potential and
competitiveness over other PV/T systems. The thermalelectric
conversion performance of this hybrid system has been theoretically investigated by calculating its overall thermal, electrical and
exergy efciencies. Results show that the overall thermal, electrical
and exergy efciencies of heat pipe PV/T hybrid system could reach
up to 63.65%, 8.45% and 10.26%, respectively. The varying range of
operating temperature for solar cell on the solar PV panel is less
than 2.5 C.
The relationships of the overall thermal, electrical and exergy
efciencies of the heat pipe PV/T hybrid system versus various
parameters have been discussed in detail. Parametric analysis
shows that the thermal efciency of heat pipe PV/T system can be
improved by increasing water mass ow rate and decreasing inlet
water temperature, packing factor of solar cell and heat loss coefcient in the PV/T system. Also, decreasing inlet water temperature
and increasing water mass ow rate, packing factor of solar cell
and heat loss coefcient would increase the electrical efciency of
the hybrid system. The varying inlet water temperature and packing factor of solar cell have distinct effect on the overall exergy
efciency of the heat pipe PV/T hybrid system, namely, a higher
inlet water temperature and packing factor of solar cell lead to
signicantly higher system exergy efciency, while smaller effects
of water mass ow rate and heat loss coefcient on the overall
exergy efciency have been obtained, although the overall exergy
efciency increases as the increase of water mass ow rate and
decrease of heat loss coefcient of system.

3567

Acknowledgments
This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Project No. 51076171). The authors also wish to thank
the support from Natural Science Foundation Project of CQ CSTC
(CSTC, 2010BB6062) and Project No. CDJXS 10141147 supported
by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
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