Increasing Solar Panel efficiency with Water film

[syiafuku]

A film of water on the panel will reflect light - the question is how much.

The only you can make any progress is to set up one panel and see what happens.

To me, the fins on the backside make good sense. They are totally passive with no moving parts and do not interfere with light reaching the cells.

alright noted.yup I'll consult with my SV about the fins and all too. Maybe that will be included too along with the water film.

[Jeremy Naples]

I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but it's preferable if you can utilize an already free-flowing cooling source, by redirecting a stream or some runoff from a drainage unit and guiding it over the panels to cool them. I wonder if the inconsistent coverage of a drainage unit would be enough....

[syiafuku]

i don't think i'll be doing that.but thanks for the info.

i've read a couple of journals and found out that in my place (Malaysia), among the four types of solar panel cells ie multi-crystalline silicon, mono-crystaline silicon, amorphous silicon and copper indium-diselenide( CIS), CIS and amorphous gives the best performance ratio than the others. My SV and me will probably be buying either of the two but of course further research is needed before doing so.
Any comments on these two types of panels?

[syiafuku]

hi all.um one question.what is a short circuit current? i googled it but couldn't find a good understandable answer( i'm a bit falling in the electrical side :P) i understand about the load current and load voltage,and open circuit voltage, but short circuit current? and i read somewhere that open circuit voltage x short circuit current = power rating? is this true?


one more thing,what type of pump should i use to circulate the water to flow on the panels? i'm thinking of circulating pumps >

[lile001]

hi all.um one question.what is a short circuit current? i googled it but couldn't find a good understandable answer( i'm a bit falling in the electrical side :P) i understand about the load current and load voltage,and open circuit voltage, but short circuit current? and i read somewhere that open circuit voltage x short circuit current = power rating? is this true?


one more thing,what type of pump should i use to circulate the water to flow on the panels? i'm thinking of circulating pumps >

Short circuit current is the amount of current that flows if you short out the plus and minus terminals of the solar panel. It is mostly used to help size fuses for the DC combiner box. It is NOT true that open circuit voltage X Short circuit current = power rating - those are two extreme conditions that never occur at the same time. (when the terminals are shorted, the output voltage is zero, when the terminals are open, the output current is zero.)

If you decided to short out something grid powered, like an electrical socket (a bad idea) then a very large short circuit flows, and hopefully causes a circuit breaker to blow before it fries anything. In a solar panel, there is only a small amount of power available, so short circuit currents are very small - a few amps. You size fuses so that they will carry the current from one string, however they should blow if the short circuit current from all of the strings are added together.


I'll let someone else address the pump issue - that can be very complex and depends a lot on the specific configuration of your piping - head, flow, pipe diameter and so on.

[syiafuku]

Short circuit current is the amount of current that flows if you short out the plus and minus terminals of the solar panel. It is mostly used to help size fuses for the DC combiner box. It is NOT true that open circuit voltage X Short circuit current = power rating - those are two extreme conditions that never occur at the same time. (when the terminals are shorted, the output voltage is zero, when the terminals are open, the output current is zero.)

If you decided to short out something grid powered, like an electrical socket (a bad idea) then a very large short circuit flows, and hopefully causes a circuit breaker to blow before it fries anything. In a solar panel, there is only a small amount of power available, so short circuit currents are very small - a few amps. You size fuses so that they will carry the current from one string, however they should blow if the short circuit current from all of the strings are added together.


I'll let someone else address the pump issue - that can be very complex and depends a lot on the specific configuration of your piping - head, flow, pipe diameter and so on.

i see.thank you for the info. that helps a lot! yeah that pump issue is really bugging me. I'm clueless on this one. probably for my project, extrenal power would be use for the pump, as just to show the output increment using a water film.unless the power gain is enough to power the pump too

[syiafuku]

how can i calculate the flowrate of water? i mean when the water is flowing on the panel. does it have anything to do with specific heat water capacity?the q=m.c.deltaP ?

[russ]

The water curtain will deflect far more light than you expect İ believe.

Don't worry about sizing the pump until you have tried the concept and proven that it works. For now just connect a garden hose or use buckets to transport water.

The immediate problem is distributing the water uniformly across the surface of the collector.

When you try it using any simple method and see the collector output fall off you may lose interest in the whole scheme.

[syiafuku]

The water curtain will deflect far more light than you expect İ believe.

Don't worry about sizing the pump until you have tried the concept and proven that it works. For now just connect a garden hose or use buckets to transport water.

The immediate problem is distributing the water uniformly across the surface of the collector.

When you try it using any simple method and see the collector output fall off you may lose interest in the whole scheme.

yeah, i thought about that too, but actually water, with a refractive index of 1.3, is a viable intermediary between glass (n=1.5) and air ( n=10). Water actually reduces reflection by 2-3.5% (based on a journal i researched).

Yes now I'm in the process of trying to design how the water will flow on the panel. So if anybody has an idea or suggestion please share it here. about the uniformity of water flow, i think my initial design (1st page) should do the trick.but of course it needs some more modifications to the design