Amin Shahsavar Goldanloo

In this study, the effect of using ultrasonic and thermoelectrics with different arrangements to cool down a photovoltaic module is investigated. The thermoelectric generators attached to the back of photovoltaic module to receive the heat from its surface. Besides, the high-frequency ultrasonic used to induce cold vapor to contact with thermoelectrics and increase the temperature gradient in them. The effect of using different working fluids including pure water, ethanol/water mixture with different ethanol fractions (α = 10–70 %), and SiC nanofluid (ϕ = 0.05–0.5 %wt) is evaluated. In addition, the effect of the number of thermoelectric generators (N = 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12) with different arrangements is examined, which is not considered until now. Obtained data proved the best performance is related to N = 12 and the results of which are very close to 10. Results show that SiC nanofluid, even at very low concentrations, have a more significant effect than water on reducing the temperature of the photovoltaic module and its uniform distribution. The ethanol/water mixture with α = 40 % has better performance than water and an increase in α more than 40 % has weaker performance compared to pure water. The calculation of the coefficient of energy for all working fluids and all the arrangements of the thermoelectric generators is higher than 1, which proves that the proposed cooling system is quite practical.