Experimental study on cooling and power generation performance of photovoltaic modules with heat pipe-liquid coupling cooling

Abstract

Overheating significantly reduces the power conversion efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) modules. The temperature coefficient of crystalline silicon PV cells is approximately −0.45%/°C, leading to efficiency losses up to 15% in summer. A heat pipe‑liquid cooling hybrid system was designed in this study: the heat pipe passively conducts heat to the condenser, and a water pump actively drives coolant circulation. Experimental results under typical sunny conditions show that the central panel temperature drops from 56°C to 28°C within 5 minutes. Compared with an uncooled panel, the electrical efficiency of the hybrid‑cooled panel increases from 12.7%–13.3% to 17.2%–17.7% (an absolute improvement of about 4.5 percentage points), and the maximum output power is increased by approximately 35% under the same irradiance. These results validate the cooling and efficiency enhancement capability of the proposed hybrid scheme under high‑temperature, high‑irradiance conditions.