Comparison of heat sink and water type PV/T collector for polycrystalline photovoltaic panel cooling

Cylindrical pin fin heat sinks are not used to cool a panel, which we have done so in the present work and tested it's performance against a traditional single-channel PV/T collector. An older 20 Watt poly-crystalline solar cell photovoltaic panel with a standard efficiency of 11.7% is elevated to a high temperature by indoor halogen light of intensity 1378.4 W m(-2) in this study. The temperature of 81.7 +/- 2.3 degrees C temperature at the front and 88.6 degrees C at the rear under at 0 m(2) s(-1) wind speeds are lowered using a cylindrical pin fin heat sink (fin density 1.22 fin cm(-2)). A channel of aspect ratios alpha* = 0.08 was attached to the rear of the panel as the collector configuration. Temperatures dropped to 58.4 degrees C with heat sink and 47.9 degrees using the collector. The analysis suggests that heat flux of 667.2 W m(-2) at the rear of the bare panel with no cooling is enhanced by 30 and 41.5% by the heat sink and PV/T collector by natural methods. We strongly urge exploration of using the cylindrical pin fin heat sinks to cool the panel under stagnant wind conditions. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.