Grantee Research Project Results

Final Report: Develop a Concentrated Solar Power-based Thermal Cooling System via Simulation and Experimental Studies

EPA Grant Number: SU835728
Title: Develop a Concentrated Solar Power-based Thermal Cooling System via Simulation and Experimental Studies
Investigators: Tang, Yan , Compere, Marc , Boetcher, Sandra , Engblom, William , Rosenthal, Andrew , Faden, Shadi , Atticks, Kendra , Judson, Zachary , Goncalves, Bruna , Gulati, Rohit , Beckwith, Jenna
Institution: Embry - Riddle Aeronautical University
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Phase: II
Project Period: August 15, 2014 through August 14, 2016
Project Amount: $89,996
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet - Phase 2 (2014) Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Challenge Area - Air Quality , Sustainable and Healthy Communities

Objective:

The project was broken down to three major tasks: one was to develop a cooling mechanism for PV panels, one was to design a test rig to evaluate efficiency of PV panels with temperature regulated by solutions from task I, and the last one was to install a solar cooling system with PV panels to test the design in the application.

Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):

To evaluate how PCMs regulates temperature of PV panels, a simplified experimental set-up was built. The experimental set-up was made to approximate a one-dimensional heat [low from the PV panel to the PCM. An aluminum plate was used to simulate a PV panel to simplify the construction of the experiment. Several experimental container construction variations have been tested. A successful experimental container has been built, and has had five successful tests run with it. The experimental container was made of an aluminum lid and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) body. The aluminum lid is simulating a PV panel and acting as a heat spreader for the constant (lux heater. The HDPE body was made to accommodate one layer of the 18 mm PCM pellets currently in the lab. HDPE was used to deter heat transfer through the walls of the container to more accurately simulate I-D heat flow.

The entire experimental container is enveloped in 6 inches of insulation to ensure minimal heat transfer with surroundings. A simulation was used to determine the optimal thickness of the insulation.

The preliminary results indicate that each experiment be repeated with increased instrumentation to increase the resolution of the data. It is recommended that each experimental container be instrumented with 9 towers with 4 thermocouples each to measure lid and PCM temperature, 3 thermocouples to measure HDPE Body temperature, and I ambient thermocouple. This would be a total or 40 thermocouples per experimental container. With the current amount of Multiplexers (3 multiplexers), only one experiment could be run at a time. Therefore, it is also recommended that an additional Multiplexer be purchased in order to run two experiments at once. It is also recommended that PCMs with various melting temperature ranges be tested to determine which PCM has the optimal thermal regulating properties.

Conclusions:

We have gained better understanding about solar cooling through this project. Our research has shown that the concentrated solar power-based cooling technique is not valuable for residential use because of the cost or the absorption chiller and space requirement of the heat storage.

Since it is unavoidable that efficiency Of PV panels will decrease when surface temperature of PV panels increases, it is important to develop techniques to regulate the temperature to achieve maximum efficiency. This project explored the benefits or using PCMS and identified challenges of using PCM for cooling PV panels including the design of the container holding PCMs and the heat exchanger ror removing heat. As PV panels have gained more markets as building-integrated materials, the results from the project have values for the emerging market because building-integrated PV panels could power the existing AC systems.

Future work should include improving current design of the PCM container to further increase efficiency or PV panels.

Journal Articles:

No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 2 publications for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

Solar cooling, photovoltaic, phase-change material

Progress and Final Reports:

Original Abstract

2015 Progress Report

P3 Phase I:

Develop a Concentrated Solar Power-based Thermal Cooling System via Simulation and Experimental Studies  | Final Report