Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel

Amorphous silicon (a-Si) cells are able to perform better as temperature increases due to the effect of thermal annealing. a-Si cells have great potential to solve or ease the problems of high power temperature coefficient, large thermal stress caused by temperature fluctuation and gradient, and thi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Li, Jing, Ren, Xiao, Yuan, Weiqi, Li, Zhaomeng, Pei, Gang, Su, Yuehong, Çağrı, Kutlu, Ji, Jie, Riffat, Saffa
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/52755/
_version_ 1848798802048188416
author Li, Jing
Ren, Xiao
Yuan, Weiqi
Li, Zhaomeng
Pei, Gang
Su, Yuehong
Su, Yuehong
Çağrı, Kutlu
Ji, Jie
Riffat, Saffa
author_facet Li, Jing
Ren, Xiao
Yuan, Weiqi
Li, Zhaomeng
Pei, Gang
Su, Yuehong
Su, Yuehong
Çağrı, Kutlu
Ji, Jie
Riffat, Saffa
author_sort Li, Jing
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Amorphous silicon (a-Si) cells are able to perform better as temperature increases due to the effect of thermal annealing. a-Si cells have great potential to solve or ease the problems of high power temperature coefficient, large thermal stress caused by temperature fluctuation and gradient, and thick layer of conventional crystalline silicon cell-related photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors. In this paper, an innovative a-Si PV/T system is developed. It is the first time that a-Si cells deposited on stainless steel have been used in a practical PV/T system. The system comprises of two PV/T collectors. In each collector, there are 8 pieces of solar cells in series. Long-term outdoor performance has been monitored. Experimental results on the thermal efficiency Image 1, electrical efficiency Image 2 and I-V characteristic are presented. The peak instantaneous Image 3 was about 42.49% with the maximum Image 4 of 5.92% on April 2, 2017. The daily average Image 5 and Image 6 were 32.8% and 5.58%. Accordingly, Image 7 ,Image 8, Image 9 and Image 10 on October 27 were 43.47%, 5.69%, 38.65% and 5.22 %. During more than half a year operation, no technical failure of the system has been observed. The feasibility of the a-Si PV/T is preliminarily demonstrated by the prototype.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:25:33Z
format Article
id nottingham-52755
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:25:33Z
publishDate 2018
publisher Elsevier
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-527552020-05-04T19:49:10Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/52755/ Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel Li, Jing Ren, Xiao Yuan, Weiqi Li, Zhaomeng Pei, Gang Su, Yuehong Su, Yuehong Çağrı, Kutlu Ji, Jie Riffat, Saffa Amorphous silicon (a-Si) cells are able to perform better as temperature increases due to the effect of thermal annealing. a-Si cells have great potential to solve or ease the problems of high power temperature coefficient, large thermal stress caused by temperature fluctuation and gradient, and thick layer of conventional crystalline silicon cell-related photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors. In this paper, an innovative a-Si PV/T system is developed. It is the first time that a-Si cells deposited on stainless steel have been used in a practical PV/T system. The system comprises of two PV/T collectors. In each collector, there are 8 pieces of solar cells in series. Long-term outdoor performance has been monitored. Experimental results on the thermal efficiency Image 1, electrical efficiency Image 2 and I-V characteristic are presented. The peak instantaneous Image 3 was about 42.49% with the maximum Image 4 of 5.92% on April 2, 2017. The daily average Image 5 and Image 6 were 32.8% and 5.58%. Accordingly, Image 7 ,Image 8, Image 9 and Image 10 on October 27 were 43.47%, 5.69%, 38.65% and 5.22 %. During more than half a year operation, no technical failure of the system has been observed. The feasibility of the a-Si PV/T is preliminarily demonstrated by the prototype. Elsevier 2018-09-15 Article PeerReviewed Li, Jing, Ren, Xiao, Yuan, Weiqi, Li, Zhaomeng, Pei, Gang, Su, Yuehong, Su, Yuehong, Çağrı, Kutlu, Ji, Jie and Riffat, Saffa (2018) Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel. Energy, 159 . pp. 786-798. ISSN 0360-5442 amorphous silicon cell; photovoltaic/thermal collector; I-V characteristic; thermal efficiency; electricity efficiency https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544218311927 doi:10.1016/j.energy.2018.06.127 doi:10.1016/j.energy.2018.06.127
spellingShingle amorphous silicon cell; photovoltaic/thermal collector; I-V characteristic; thermal efficiency; electricity efficiency
Li, Jing
Ren, Xiao
Yuan, Weiqi
Li, Zhaomeng
Pei, Gang
Su, Yuehong
Su, Yuehong
Çağrı, Kutlu
Ji, Jie
Riffat, Saffa
Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel
title Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel
title_full Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel
title_fullStr Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel
title_full_unstemmed Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel
title_short Experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel
title_sort experimental study on a novel photovoltaic thermal system using amorphous silicon cells deposited on stainless steel
topic amorphous silicon cell; photovoltaic/thermal collector; I-V characteristic; thermal efficiency; electricity efficiency
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/52755/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/52755/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/52755/