Modern agriculture is profoundly reliant on use of fossil fuels and with the vision of transferring those uses to renewable energy sources, a hybrid photovoltaic thermal system (PVT) has been designed in this study to use the cogenerated heat for crop drying while generating green electricity.
The designed PVT system will use a fan to extract the heat and provide the optimal thermal energy during crop drying period and will be used in passive mode to improve the electrical efficiency of the system during rest of the period. The main aim of this study is to quantify the output from the designed PVT system with its economic evaluations.
A novel methodology is developed by using the simulated output from grid connected PV system as an input for modelling the PVT system using steady state equations in Microsoft Excel. Parameters such as duct depth, air mass flow rate and corresponding fan electrical power requirements were optimized using batch simulations for providing optimal thermal and electrical output from the system.
The thermal energy efficiency of the designed PVT system using copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) cells was predicted to be 28 % with the electrical efficiency improvement by 2 % for forced cooling and around 1 % during passive air flow. The designed PVT system will have a payback period of 13 years with the current financial regulations and framework in Sweden.