Description of Invention
Numerous cooling techniques are available to reduce photovoltaic module (PV) temperature and thus improve PV efficiency. Sometimes, the manufacturing cost of some PV cooling techniques is higher as compared with their power productivity, and thus the cost parameter is needed to be taken into consideration to justify producing certain PV cooling techniques. This study proposes a new method called cost effectiveness factor for the PV cooling technique. To determine the optimum PV cooler, the minimum value of the PV cooling technique production cost effectiveness factor is defined. The applicability conditions and limitations of the proposed method are illustrated.