SIMULATION, EXPERIMENT AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THERMOSIPHON COOLED FLOATING PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM WITH PARALLEL RESERVOIR

• Main Author: Adiyani, Aura
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik (Rekayasa, enjinering dan kegiatan berkaitan)
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/70319
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Increasing electricity needs and global warming encourage the use of renewable energy. Solar energy is a renewable energy source that is abundant, clean, and free. However, the availability of vast lands for the construction of solar power plants (PV system) is decreasing. The development of floating PV system can be a solution to this problem. Most of the floating PV plant research in performance optimization is carried out by adding a cooling system that is integrated with solar or photovoltaic (PV) modules. This is done to increase system efficiency by decreasing the PV temperature. One cooling system that does not require additional power to operate is a thermosiphon. Several previous studies have proven that thermosiphon coolers for floating PV can increase power and efficiency compared to ground PV installations. However, previous research used a relatively high reservoir height and could cause shading in floating PV. Therefore, a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation of the thermosiphon cooling system with a reservoir parallel to the PV module is carried out to see if there is a flow of cooling fluid in the thermosiphon. An initial CFD simulation was carried out to determine the presence of flow in the thermosiphon cooling fluid before the fabrication process. Then a final CFD simulation is carried out based on the data obtained after the experiment as validation. The simulation is done with transient mode by adjusting the properties of the working fluid as a function of temperature (piecewise-linear). The SIMPLE method and laminar flow model are used to run the CFD numerical simulation. The simulation results showed that the thermosiphon cooling system can effectively cool PV. Tests for thermosiphon-cooled floating PV with a reservoir parallel to the PV module and floating PV without cooling system (conventional floating PV) were then carried out to see the effect of installing a cooling system on the increase in floating PV power and efficiency from the ground PV testing. The test results showed that thermosiphon-cooled floating PV can increase the efficiency and power by 4.88% and 4.65% relative to ground PV testing. Another test configuration, namely floating PV without cooling system can increase efficiency and power by 2.57% and 2.5% relative to ground PV testing. In addition, the calculation of investment feasibility in the form of net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and payback period (PP) is carried out for several schemes which are ground PV system, un-cooled floating PV system, thermosiphon-cooled floating PV system with parallel reservoir, and thermosiphon-cooled floating PV system with a reservoir height of 75cm. The results of economic calculations show that the thermosiphon-cooled floating PV system with a height of 75cm is the most profitable scheme and the ground PV system is the least profitable scheme. Thermosiphon-cooled floating PV system with parallel reservoir was in the third place after the uncooled floating PV system, although it is more profitable than ground PV system, the capital expenditure of the cooling system is expensive and the increase in efficiency is not high enough, making this scheme unable to beat the investment returns for the un-cooled floating PV system.