An experimental study on thermal management of concentrated photovoltaic cell using loop heat pipe and heat sink

One of the most critical innovations in the solar energy conversion is the use of concentrators for generating power from a smaller area of the cell. The thermal management has an exceptional role in the concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) cell, without which the operating temperature will increase owing to the thermal degradation. In the present study, a prototype of low CPV with single-cell configuration using a Fresnel lens and a manual tracker with geometrical concentration ratio of up to 25 Suns is made. The performance of the CPV with passive cooling arrangements, such as heat sink and loop heat pipes (LHPs), is analyzed under real-time outdoor conditions. The results obtained infer that the LHP-based cooling system has brought down the average temperature rise above ambient to 37.8 degrees C from 54.16 degrees C and 72.6 degrees C in the heat sink and bare CPV systems, respectively. Also, the LHP managed to reject the heat to the surrounding with an average thermal resistance of 1.005 degrees C/W, which is the least when compared with the heat sink. Apart from the instabilities caused by the interference of clouds, the CPV with the LHP cooling system could generate 10% more power output than the one with a heat sink.