Title: Thermal modelling, validation and exergetic analysis of a hybrid Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) active solar still

Authors: Shiv Kumar, G.N. Tiwari

Addresses: Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 11 00 16, India. ' Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 11 00 16, India

Abstract: This paper presents the thermal analysis of a self sustainable, new design of hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) active solar distillation system. The experiments were conducted for 24 h (7am-7am) for the New Delhi (India) climatic conditions on typical days during the month of April 2006 for water at different depths (i.e., 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 m) in order to validate the experimental results, a thermal model was developed. The theoretical results obtained for basin water temperature and distillate yields are in fair agreement with experimental results. Further, the exergetic and energetic analysis of passive and hybrid active solar still inferred that the average annual exergy efficiency of hybrid active solar still is higher than passive solar still almost by 25%, while the energy efficiency is lower by 24%.

Keywords: hybrid active solar stills; thermal modelling; exergy efficiency; thermal efficiency; photovoltaics; India; exergy analysis; basin water temperature; distillate yields; energy analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2009.026678

International Journal of Exergy, 2009 Vol.6 No.4, pp.567 - 591

Published online: 22 Jun 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article