Anti-reflective coating and cooling technique for innovative photovoltaic system in tropical region

We propose progressive cooling and anti-reflection coating (ARC) techniques for silicon photovoltaic (PV) modules. The ARC techniques include sol-gel-based-silica nanoparticles on the front of glass and polymethyl methacrylate polymer for a conventional and lightweight PV module, respectively. In addition, a dielectric aluminum oxide coating at the front of the silicon solar cell is prepared using atomic layer deposition. Accordingly, the ARCs boost the output power of the conventional and lightweight PV modules to about 20 W and 22.4 W, respectively. At the rear of a PV module, the COMSOL simulator is used to optimize the water jet cooling system. The operating temperature of a conventional and lightweight PV module drops by 10.7 °C and 15.9 °C, respectively. Combining the cooling and ARC techniques increases the output power of conventional and lightweight PV modules by 30.4 W and 37.8 W, respectively. Using the modelling programme PVsyst, several orientations of a 60 kW monofacial PV system are evaluated. The results show a high potential for improving the PV module and system performance.