Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Solar Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener A comprehensive investigation of the optimization cooling technique for improving the performance of PV module with reflectors under Egyptian conditions A.E. Kabeel a , Mohamed Abdelgaied a , Ravishankar Sathyamurthy a,b a Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Egypt b Department of Automobile Engineering, Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science, Chennai 603103, Tamil Nadu, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: PV module Reflectors Cooling techniques Performance improvement Economic study ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to determine an optimization cooling technology for improving the performance of PV module with reflector under Egyptian conditions. For best cooling technology can be used to enhance the performance of the PV module with reflectors, a three different cooling techniques were experimentally studied as follows: use air forced cooling technology in the presence of reflectors (case-I), use water cooling technology in the presence of reflectors (case-II), and use forced-air and water cooling technologies together in the presence of reflectors (case-III). The results of the case-I, case-II, and case-III was compared to the conventional PV module to get the best cooling technique that case be used to improve the performance of the PV module with reflectors. Also, the economic analysis was studied. The results show that use water cooling technology in the presence of reflectors represents a best technology that can be used for the PV modules. The net output electricity reaches to 912, 1077, and 1010 Wh/day for case-I, II, and III, respectively. But the output electricity from the conventional PV module recorded 832 Wh/day. The gain in the net output electricity for using the reflectors and the cooling technique was recorded 80, 245, and 178 Wh/day for case-I, II, and III, respectively compared to traditional case. Furthermore, the estimated costs of kWh reached approximately 0.062, 0.072, 0.061, and 0.0722 $/kWh for the conventional case, case-I, II, and III, respectively. Finally, we recommend using water cooling technology in the presence of reflectors to improve the performance of the PV module under Egyptian conditions. 1. Introduction As a result of the rapid development and technological advances in human life on Earth, electricity demand has increased over the years to meet its requirements and daily activities, to mitigate the global energy crisis and reduce its environmental impact. Recent technological de- velopments have made solar energy a viable alternative to generating electricity. This is done by using the PV modules as they represent one of the technologies used to generate electricity by converting solar energy directly into electrical power. The PV units are characterized as having no negative environmental impact, but PV units have low con- version efficiency. This requires the use of hybrid configurations often to improve performance of the PV modules (Su et al., 2014). The conversion efficiency of the PV modules depends on semi- conductors material, absorbed solar radiation intensity, and the cell temperature (Makki et al., 2015). To enhance the output electricity of the PV modules, a plane reflector was used to increase the collection of solar intensity inside the PV modules. Where the cost of the reflectors does not exceed 5% of the cost of the PV module, but theoretically, the reflectors increases the intensity of solar radiation absorbed in the PV modules by 15% (Ahmad and Hussein, 2001). The use of low con- centrations with PV modules is characterized by a 40% reduction in the price of electrical power production compared to simple units of the PV modules without concentrations (Mallick and Eames, 2007). There are also some applications where cylindrical parabolic concentrator are used with PV modules to reduce the price of electricity produced (Mallick et al., 2004; Lamba and Kaushik, 2016; Burhan et al., 2016; Renno and Petito, 2016). One of the main problems affecting the electricity production of PV modules is high temperature because a big fraction of solar radiation falling on PV panels is transformed to heat as well because of high ambient temperature. The higher in cell temperature of the PV panel will cause a reduction in electricity production from the PV modules (Akbarzadeh and Wadowski, 1996; Ndiaye et al. 2014). The rise in the PV module temperature causes a big decline in voltage and a slight rise in the current and, in total, reduction in the electrical power generated https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2019.05.019 Received 10 April 2019; Received in revised form 8 May 2019; Accepted 9 May 2019 E-mail address: kabeel6@f-eng.tanta.edu.eg (A.E. Kabeel). Solar Energy 186 (2019) 257–263 0038-092X/ © 2019 International Solar Energy Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T