Abstract—In this paper, the steady-state performance evaluation of a double-pass flat plate hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) solar heater with attached vertical fins of different configurations at the bottom of the absorber in the lower channel has been evaluated. A simulation model for predicting the thermal and electrical photovoltaic thermal performance of the system is presented and various performance parameters are calculated for a proposed PV/T for three straight fin profiles besides the configuration with pin fins. The effect of different fin materials has also been investigated. The simulation results showed that the use of pin fins is beneficial to achieve better performance over the design with straight fins. The model could be easily extended to cover other fin types.
Index Terms—Air, double-pass, electrical efficiency, fin, photovoltaic/thermal, solar heater.
Amin Elsafi and P. Gandhidasan are with the King Fahd University of Petroleum And Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (e-mail: amin_elsafi@ yahoo.com, pgandhi@kfupm.edu.sa).
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Cite:Amin Elsafi and P. Gandhidasan, "Performance of a Photovoltaic or Thermal Double-Pass Solar Air Heater with Different Fin Configurations," Journal of Clean Energy Technologies vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 28-33, 2015.
