Abstract—This study focuses on the cooling of a photovoltaic panel (PV). Indeed, the cooling improves the conversion capacity of this one and maintains, under extreme conditions of air temperature, the panel temperature at an appreciable level which avoids the altering. To do this, a fan provides forced circulation of air. Because the fan is supplied by the panel, it is necessary to determine the optimum operating point that unites efficiency of the PV with the consumption of the fan. For this matter, numerical simulations are performed at varying mass flow rates of air, under two extreme air temperatures (50°C, 25°C) and a fixed solar radiation (1000W.m 2 ) in a case of no wind. Keywords—Energy conversion, efficiency, balance energy, solar cell. I. INTRODUCTION ANY studies focuses on the cooled photovoltaic panels. Indeed, the efficiency of such systems is highlighted for hybrid systems as the solar photovoltaic thermal (PV/T), for which the energy consumption required for the air or water circulators are negligible [1]–[3]. To overcome the use of fan circulator, other systems use the cooling by natural circulation of air [4], [5]. The objective of this work is precisely to show that it is possible to cool the PV by forced air. However, an optimum air flow is necessary for a good balance between electric energy generated by the PV and the power consumed by air pump. Moreover, the upper face of PV is exposed to the external environment where the exchanges take place by natural convection. While, on the underside, the heat exchange by forced convection is ensured by the air flow induced by the fan. Furthermore, the glass and the silicon layer are the seat of an internal heat source resulting from a heat balance of short and long wave radiations. Numerical simulations are then performed for the case of a monocrystalline PV (0.22m× 0.29m×0.025m). The efficiency of the cooling system is compared to the non-cooled one in a case of no wind. II. A ONE DIODE MODEL There are several mathematical models that describes the operations and the behavior of the photovoltaic generator, the most famous and classical of them is the one-diode model [6], D. Nebbali, R. Nebbali and A. Ouibrahim are with the Laboratoire d'Energétique, Mécanique et Matériaux - LEMM (Energy, Mechanics and Materials laboratory), University of Mouloud Mammeri, Tizi-Ouzou 15000, Algeria (e-mail: z_nebbali@ yahoo.fr). [7] which involves: a current generator generated by the illumination, reverse saturation current of the diode associated to the p-n junction and two resistors (series and shunt) for the models that describes the operations and the behavior of the photovoltaic generator, the most famous and classical of them is the one-diode model [6], [7] which involves: a current generator generated by the illumination, reverse saturation current of the diode associated to the p-n junction and two resistors (series and shunt) losses. This model is shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 1 Equivalent circuit of solar cell (1-diode model) The analytical formulation of this model is expressed as follow:                 1 IR V exp I I I s 0 L a (1) A solution of the above equation requires to known five parameters: the light current I L , the diode reverse saturation current I 0 , the series resistance R s , the shunt resistance R sh , and a curve fitting parameter a, which are highly related to the intensity of solar radiation and the temperature of the solar panel. These parameters are obtained indirectly using measurements of the current and voltage characteristics of a module at reference conditions (1000 W  m -2 incident radiation and 25°C ambient air temperature) [8], with the shunt resistance taken as infinity [9]. Under other conditions, it operates the following correlations to evaluate them: ref P, P ref T T a a  (2)     ref P, P cc I, ref L, ref G, G L T T μ I R R I    (3)                         P ref P, ref s 3 ref P, P ref , 0 0 T T 1 a εN exp T T I I (4) Numerical Simulation of a Solar Photovoltaic Panel Cooled by a Forced Air System D. Nebbali, R. Nebbali, A. Ouibrahim M R s IL Id R sh V World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering Vol:8, No:11, 2014 1706 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 8(11) 2014 ISNI:0000000091950263 Open Science Index, Energy and Power Engineering Vol:8, No:11, 2014 publications.waset.org/9999659/pdf