Dynamic thermal simulation of a solar chimney with PV modules

Abstract

The issue of this paper is to present theoretical results for a solar chimney with thermal mass, where the glass surface is replaced by photo-voltaic (PV) modules. A portion of the heat ab-sorbed by the PV modules is dissipated to the air channel in convective form, and it exchanges radiation heat with the concrete wall. These cooling phenomena for the PV modules im-prove their efficiency with a lower working temperature. Both phenomena are heating proc-ess to the air and the concrete wall, that produce natural ventilation. The solar chimney is sup-posed to be isolated from any building. The re-sults obtained are an average air mass flow rate around 0.02 kg/s along the day and night, and a maximum PV temperature of 321 K.

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