Evaluation of an Integrated Pipe Water Cooling Strategy to Improve BIPV Structure Performance

When the temperatures of photovoltaics break a threshold of 25 degrees celsius, they begin to lose
efficiency. This work describes the basis of a water cooling mechanism which may be used to cool down roof
mounted photovoltaics. After a thorough literature review, it was decided that running water through aluminum
pipes attached to the back of a solar panel would be the most effective method. To study the effectiveness of such a
system, a prototype was fabricated two panels were brought out to the top of a solar deck in an engineering
university building and laid out in parallel. One panel had the cooling system attached to its back and the other one
had no attachments to serve as a control panel. Experimentation was performed by taking temperature measurements
for one hour before activating the hydraulics for 30 minutes. It was found that a significant reduction of temperature
occurred on the water-cooled panel.