It is a well-known fact that solar panels decrease in efficiency when their operating temperature increases.
Therefore a new concept for cooling photovoltaic modules was designed and tested. This could potentially increase the yield from solar panels by up to 10% yearly. This idea improves on all existing cooling systems in both feasibility and practicality.
The filed patent covers both a completely new solar panel incorporating the cooling system and also after-market solutions that can be added to existing photovoltaic installations. IPCoSy is being designed for both offshore and on land use.
IPCoSy has recently been awarded two funded projects from the Energy and Water Agency and the Maritime Seed Award.
These projects are aimed towards designing and manufacturing high TRL prototypes and protecting intellectual property. Thus, a patent was recently filed and the group is currently working on the design of the large scale prototypes. Small scale prototypes have already been manufactured and the concept has been extensively tested with publications of results expected in the near future.
