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This paper presents the effect of the front surface water cooling on performance parameters (solar cell temperature, back surface temperature, outlet water temperature, electrical efficiency, overall efficiency, etc.) of photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) module in both winter and summer seasons in Indian climatic conditions. A mathematical model of PV/T module considering energy balance equations has also been presented. A comparative analysis of performance parameters obtained analytically and experimentally has also been presented. A fair agreement has also been found between analytical and experimental results which is supported by correlation coefficient of approximately unity and root mean square error of 10–14%. By front surface water cooling, solar cell and back surface temperature of PV/T module have been found to decrease considerably which in turn resulted in enhanced electrical and overall efficiency of module in winter and summer seasons.

Photovoltaic (PV) cells exhibit long-term degradation, when its temperature exceeds a certain limit. On the other hand, decreasing the temperature results in lower PV cell efficiency. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the improvements in the output power and efficiency of PV modules using a cooling system based on flowing water on the front surface. Front surface cooling method with the help of a water pumping system is one of the most promising methods for cooling the PV cells. With poly-crystalline PV cells, different water flow rates are experimented, and the output power and the efficiency are computed for different weather conditions. These experiments yield that the cell efficiency is improved by approximately 27.3% in winter conditions and 27.6% in summer conditions.

In this paper, thermal modeling of a hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system has been developed under combined (front and back) water surface cooling. An analytical expression has been derived for solar cell temperature (Tcs), back surface temperature (Tbs), and overall efficiency (ηOE) of the hybrid PV/T system for the winter condition. Statistical analysis has been performed in the cold climate of MNIT, Jaipur (India), for determining performance parameters of the hybrid PV/T system. An experimental validation has been carried out for the developed thermal model, and fair agreement between the numerical and experimental observations has been observed. We have also calculated the electrical (ηele), thermal (ηth), and overall efficiency (ηOE) as 18.83%, 43.8%, and 64.56%, respectively, and output power as 57.39 mW in the winter condition. We have also noticed that better performance is given by 1.5 LPM out of the four (1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5 LPM) flow rates.