Experimental and numerical studies on the thermal and electrical performance of a CdTe ventilated window integrated with vacuum glazing

The application of PV double skin ventilated windows (PV-DSV) can reduce intense sunlight from entering room and meantime lower the cell temperature. Vacuum glazing is superior in thermal insulation. To further strengthen the thermal insulation of the PV-DSV, this paper proposes an integrated vacuum glazing with PV double-skin ventilated window (VPV-DSV), which employs the CdTe PV glazing and the vacuum glazing as the front and back glazings. Thermal and electrical performance of the VPVDSV was investigated and compared with the PV vacuum insulating glazing unit (VPV-IGU) through experiment and simulation. Comparison of PV-DSV with different types of back glazing was made to explore the influence of back glazing types in PV-DSV. Furthermore, influence of the window design factors was explored. Results indicated that the use of vacuum glazing improved the thermal insulation of PV-DSV and resulted in 59.8% reduction of the U-value. VPV-DSV reduced more cooling load, but VPVIGU outperformed VPV-DSV in thermal insulation. Owing to a small temperature coefficient of the CdTe cell, their power output was similar. In addition, the WWR and PV coverage had more obvious impacts on the performance of VPV-DSV than the emissivity of low-e coating.(c) 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

This paper investigates an integrated vacuum glazing with PV double-skin ventilated window (VPV-DSV) and compares its thermal and electrical performance with PV vacuum insulating glazing unit (VPV-IGU) through experiment and simulation. The results show that the use of vacuum glazing improves the thermal insulation of PV-DSV, but VPV-IGU outperforms VPV-DSV in terms of thermal insulation.