Experimental study on cooling performance of solar cells with atmospheric plate thermosyphon

Highlights: • Atmospheric plate thermosyphon (APT) cooling solar cells was first proposed. • APT can reduce the temperature of PV panels without parasitic energy consumption. • The maximum temperature difference was less than 6 °C. • The heat transfer resistance at the evaporator is between 0.00486 and 0.02368 K/W. - Abstract: Since the heat pipe has no parasitic energy consumption, it is an important method for cooling the photovoltaic. In this paper, a novel type of atmospheric plate thermosyphon (APT) cooling system has been designed, which can be used for the heat dissipation of the single or low concentrated solar cells. In the experiments, the non-condensable gas (NCG) was collected by a gas reservoir. The coolant, ethanol, formed a liquid film on the porous medium and directly cooled the photovoltaic panel. The effect of various parameters such as heat flux density, tilt angle and inlet temperature have been studied. The results demonstrated that APT cooling system could effectively reduce the temperature of PV cells, and the higher heat flux density was, the shorter start-up time. The temperature of evaporator was uniform, and the larger inclined angle was, the greater surface temperature difference which maximumly was 5.6 °C. The thermal resistance at the evaporator was between 0.00486 and 0.02368 K/W.