Concentrating Photovoltaic/Thermal Evacuated Glazing (CoPVTEG); Introduction and computational analysis

This paper introduces an enhanced version of Concentrating Photovoltaic Glazing (CoPVG) device. The original CoPVG system was designed as a seasonal glazing, that concentrates sunlight onto the focus of the lens during summer. Whilst, in winter, the system transmits light for indoor daylighting purposes. The newly developed version, entitled Concentrating Photovoltaic/Thermal Evacuated Glazing (CoPVTEG), is capable of simultaneously harvesting thermal energy and electricity while vacuum glazing (VG) has been integrated into the device.

A finite element method was employed to simulate the glazing computationally. The developed model was validated by conducting experiments verifying that the model predicts the glazing performance reliably.

Two different configurations were considered: placing the VG facing either outside, called disposition A, or inside, called disposition B. These dispositions were analysed computationally to determine the thermal and electrical output powers of the device in Belfast, UK. It was found that locating the VG inside potentially doubled the output electrical power ranging from 63.32 W/m^2 to 92.56 W/m^2 and from 36.03 W/m^2 to 43.88 W/m^2 at noon throughout the year for disposition B and A, respectively. However, the thermal harvesting potential of disposition A is higher than disposition B. In this case, the device potentially generates from 216.46 W/m^2 to 406.20 W/m^2 thermal power at noon. While the potential will be reduced from 163.54 W/m^2 to 396.11 W/m^2 in disposition B. Disposition A is more advantageous for cold-dominant climate zones while disposition B is the suggestion for temperate climate zone like the studied case.