Comparison Study on Domestic Photovoltaic/thermal, Photovoltaic and Solar Thermal Systems Based on Validated TRNSYS Model
Abstract
In this investigation, a revised photovoltaic/thermal collector model based on TRNSYS TESS type 560 was developed to do the year-round performance prediction of both glazed and unglazed PV/T system. Simultaneously, a photovoltaic/thermal collector with the designed parameters was fabricated and tested to validate the model. Results showed that the simulation has a good agreement with experiment results. The mean error of both thermal and electrical efficiency is less than 15%. Furthermore, four domestic systems, including glazed and unglazed photovoltaic/thermal, photovoltaic and solar thermal systems, were built in TRNSYS. Annual performance of the four systems was obtained and analyzed. Compared with PV glazed PV/T can supply extra 3850.4 MJ heat, but the power generation decreases by 24.1%. The glazed PV/T SDHW system shows a similar trend of SF and auxiliary heat with the flat plate SDHW system. The variation of SF is between 19.2% and 80.5% with an annual average value of 45.9%. The unglazed PV/T system can supply 339.5 kWh electricity and offer 806.3 MJ heat for preheating, which result in a low SF of 12.9%. Based on the view of comprehensive utilization of solar energy, the glazed PV/T system seems to be a more promising solution in SDHW system.
Keywords
Photovoltaic/thermal collector, trnsys simulation, performance comparison