Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-020-10102-5

An experimental work on the performance of solar cell cooled by flat

heat pipe
Aly M. A. Soliman1,2 · Hamdy Hassan1,3

Received: 13 July 2019 / Accepted: 20 July 2020

© Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2020

Abstract
This paper introduces an experimental study for concentrating solar cell performance cooled by using flat heat pipe. The
cell represents the heat pipe evaporator, and the heat pipe condenser is cooled by using a rectangular finned heat sink. This
study is investigated at various heat pipe condenser and adiabatic regions lengths and concentration ratios of the radiation
intensity incident on the cell, and for forced and free convection airflow cooling through the finned heat sink. The required
radiation energy supplied to the cell is provided by solar simulator. The findings illustrate that cell efficiency and output
power increase with increasing the heat pipe condenser and decrease its adiabatic regions’ lengths. However, cell efficiency
reduces with rising the incident radiation intensity. The heat pipe temperature increases with radiation intensity, but its maxi-
mum temperature difference does not change greatly with variation solar intensity. Cooling the cell by heat pipe increases its
output power by 24.3% compared to free convection without utilizing heat pipe at incident energy 500 W m−2. Using forced
convection with double condenser length increases the cell output power by about 9.1% compared to one heat sink for free
convection at falling radiation intensity 3000 W m−2.

Keywords Solar cell · Flat heat pipe · Heat sink · Performance · Cooling

Introduction uniformity and cell temperature must be adjusted by utiliz-

One of the greatest important sustainable energy resources is
the solar energy which could be utilized in various applica-
tions as solar cell, solar heating, solar cooling, heating, and
power systems [1]. The cell system is able to alter the energy
from solar to electrical by means of photovoltaic system. In
solar cells, only twenty percent of the falling solar energy is
altered to electricity, nevertheless, greater than fifty percent
is transmitted to excess energy as heat. The cell temperature
rising is a result of the reduction of both cell efficiency and
cell power. Furthermore, the extra heat in diverse positions
in the cell can influence the cell silicon layer and yields
a small lifetime of the cell system. Consequently, both
* Hamdy Hassan
hamdy.aboali@ejust.edu.eg; hamdyaboali@yahoo.com
1
Energy Resources Engineering, Egypt-Japan University
of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Alexandria, Egypt
2
Mechanical Engineering Department, Shoubra, Faculty
of Engineering, Benha University, Cairo, Egypt
3
Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty
of Engineering, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
ing an appropriate cooling system. The system of cooling
could be categorized into active and passive systems based
on the inlet power utilized in the system of cooling. Passive
cooling systems don’t need inlet power, however, they have
low cooling performance whereas active systems need inlet
power to carry out the cooling process. Several studies have
been investigated for diverse systems of cooling for the solar
cells due to the notable impact of utilizing the system of
cooling on the cells performance. Moreover, utilizing the
cooling in enhancing the performance and working of con-
centrated photovoltaic (CPV) has paid attention to the sights
recently due to the notable influence of solar cell working
temperature on its performance [2]. It’s noticed that cell
efficiency is reduced by nearly 0.5 percent when the tem-
perature of the cell augments one degree [3]. Besides, the
distributions of temperature over the cell which impacts the
temperature homogeneity of the cell have a strong influence
on its life and performance [4]. The non-homogeneity of
the cell causes a decrease in the cell performance attributed
to the output power loss from the cell. Moreover, thermal
fatigue can be occurred because of thermal stresses augmen-
tation. Therefore, increasing the hot spot within the cell can

13
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damage it [4, 5]. Many investigations and researches that
deal with the cooling of solar cells have been numerically
and experimentally investigated. They stated that the more
effective techniques for cell cooling lead to good homoge-
neity and low temperature of the cells with lower power
of pumping for active cooling systems yielding higher cell
performance [6].
Various cooling techniques that are active or passive have
been applied to enhance the cells performance. As examples
of techniques of passive cooling are cooling by applying
energy storage of phase change materials (PCMs) [7, 8],
cooling by means of heat spreaders and/or heat sinks [9–11],
immersion or submersion the cells in low-temperature fluids
[12–14]. Active cooling requests additional compresses air
or power of the pump, etc. Active techniques have greater
performance in cooling than passive ones [15]. However,
cooling by means of water spraying and jet impingement
[16–18], cooling employing medium flowing through ducts
or channels [19–22], cooling by microchannels (MCs) [4,
23, 24] are some application of passive techniques of cool-
ing. The simple technique of cooling of a concentrated cell
at 50 concentration ratio (CR) by applying an aluminum flat
plate was suggested by Kenji et al. [25]. They revealed that
the applied system has about 10 °C inferior to the traditional
system without a flat plate. Additionally, Araki et al. [26]
suggested a simple cooling structure of concentrated cell
employing a heat sink (HS). It is established that HS tech-
nique of cooling reduced the cell temperature by about 21
and 18 °C at CR of 400 and 500, respectively. A cell cooling
by applying a cotton wick structure and HS was developed
by Chandrasekhar et al. [27]. The cell temperature is reduced
by around 6 °C when utilizing the suggested system of cool-
ing. Cell performance by utilizing HS was investigated by
Soliman et al. [9]. They specified that applying HS cool-
ing elevated the efficiency of cell and cell power by 9 and
10 percent, respectively. Serag and Kandil [28] presented
numerical and experimental work on the cell cooling by
using a perforated cell. They stated that the perforated cell
temperature is smaller than the cell of the non-perforated
form. Additionally, there was a critical value of the diameter
of the holes in the perforated cell where his value is lesser or
greater than this, at which the cell temperature augmented.
Heat pipe (HP) is one of the passive techniques of cool-
ing that used in the cooling of high heat fluxes systems such
as electronic devices [29–31], computer components, and
recently, solar cells [32]. The flat heat pipe (FHP) [33, 34]
is a closed solid domain which its inner surface contains
wick structure. Flat heat pipe transfers the energy from a
heat source and dissipates it to sink of heat by utilizing the
working fluid of the heat pipe through a phase change pro-
cess. The working fluid inside the wick absorbs heat from
the source of heat at the evaporator where it is evaporated,
and the created pressure force due to the evaporation process
13
A. M. A. Soliman, H. Hassan
drives the vapor from the evaporator section to condenser
section. Then, the vapor condenses at the HP condenser sec-
tion and released its heat to the heat sink. With the help of
the capillary force generated in the wick structure, the con-
densate liquid is pumped again to the HP evaporator section
[32]. Recent studies on using the heat pipes in the solar cell
cooling systems have been demonstrated. Tang et al. [35]
proposed a cooling technique of solar cells by utilizing a
micro-HP array. The condenser section of the heat pipes was
cooled by using air and water. In comparison with uncooled
cells, the cell temperature lessened by 4.7 °C and 12.7 °C
when using air-cooled and water-cooled HPs, respectively.
Additionally, the cell efficiency increased by 8.4% for air-
cooled system and 13.9% more than the air-cooled system
for water-cooled system. Gang et al. [36] developed a theo-
retical model for photovoltaics thermal (PV/T) model that
cooled by HP which transfers the dissipated energy into
useful thermal energy. They studied different parameters
affecting the system performance, solar absorber coatings,
and flow rates. They informed that the cell performance
increases with increasing the water flow rate. Anderson et al.
[37] examined the performance of utilizing copper and alu-
minum finned heat pipes in the cooling of the concentrated
photovoltaic (CPV). Their findings revealed that heat pipes
can be used effectively in the cooling of CPV. The perfor-
mance of the cooling system of pulsating HP (PHP) for solar
cells was studied theoretically by Alizadeh et al. [38]. Their
findings proved that the cell temperature reduced by 16.1 °C
when PHP cooling system is utilized while the cell tem-
perature decreased by 4.9 °C when a solid copper heat sink
is utilized. Furthermore, the cell electrical power increased
by 18% at solar radiation 1000 W m−2 when PHP cooling
system is used. Modhinou et al. [39] compared the PV per-
formance coupled with encapsulate phase change material
system PV/PCM, PV with micro heat pipe system PV/MHP
and conventional PV/T. They found that PV/PCM system
has the best performance figures for thermal, electrical and
combined efficiency with 28.7%, 7.9% and 36.7%, respec-
tively. Moreover, PV/MHP system thermal, electrical and
combined efficiency is 27.7%, 7.7% and 35.5%, respectively
and the conventional PV/T system efficiencies are 23.9%,
7.8% and 31.7%, respectively. The cooling of an unconcen-
trated solar cell by using water-cooled heat pipe was carried
out by Du et al. [40]. The cell temperature was reduced by
47% when the water-cooled heat pipe was used. Akbarzedh
et al. [41] investigated experimentally the heat pipe cooling
system for CPV. Their results stated that the output system
power is augmented by 50% and the cell temperature did
not exceed 320 K.
From the preceding literature review, it can be stated that
there are some researches examined the solar cells cool-
ing by utilizing HP, but few works have considered the HP
performance as a passive technique for cooling the cells.
An experimental work on the performance of solar cell cooled by flat heat pipe
Moreover, to the best of the authors survey, no former work
has been presented for the flat HP (FHP) design and operat-
ing parameters on the cooling system performance of the
concentrated cells. Therefore, the current study investigates
experimentally the performance of FHP cooling technique
on the concentrated cell cooling at diverse condenser and
adiabatic regions lengths and different concentration ratios
that was not presented earlier. The HP condenser region of
the present study is cooled by using a HS with forced and
free convection air cooling of the HS which also not con-
sidered before. Different incident radiation intensities are
applied to the cell by using a solar simulator. The advantage
of this cooling system (HP plus HS) is that it is simple and
has not any excess cost especially for free convection air
cooling of the heat pipe condenser except the initial cost
of the HP. Moreover, using the flat heat pipe on cell cool-
ing transfers the extracted heat from the cell to a distance
far from the surrounding of the solar cell. The influence
of the studied previous parameters on the cell temperature,
efficiency, output power, heat pipe temperature and I–V char-
acteristics of the cell is offered.
Experimental
Interior experiments are accomplished to examine the
performance of a FHP for cooling the concentrated cell.
The experimental setup used in this work as shown in the
image of Fig. 1 and layout in Fig. 2 consists of a solar
cell, flat heat pipe, solar simulator and heat sink. The solar
simulator is used to simulate the solar radiation where it
supplies the solar cell with the equivalent solar energy.
The solar simulator consists of three halogen lamps
each of 1000 W, and they are utilized to represent sun
Fig. 1  Experimental setup
image
eet
lic sh
PV
Acry
Laptop
solar radiation. The halogen lamps are enclosed inside a
reflector as shown in Fig. 1 to concentrate their power
on the cell surface. The output power from the lamps is
regulated by using a volt regulator to provide the cell with
the required radiation intensity. The used solar cell is a
polycrystalline cell with 6 V and 12.5 mA and dimension
of 65 mm × 165 mm. Three flat heat pipes from AMEC-
THERMASOL company with 500 mm length and 50 mm
width and 75 watts heat capacity are utilized. The mate-
rial of HP is aluminum (Aluminum 1050), and the HP
working fluid is acetone with groove wick structure of
the heat pipe wick. The HP is used to cool the cell by
transferring the heat from the source of heat (solar cell) to
the HS (Aluminum Fins). The used HP length is 500 mm
divided into 100 mm for the evaporator section (solar
cell), and the rest 400 mm is divided as (1) 200 mm for
the adiabatic section and 200 mm for the condenser sec-
tion (2) 300 mm for the adiabatic section and 100 mm
for the condenser section. Acrylic sheet with 5 mm thick-
ness and low thermal conductivity is used to insulate the
adiabatic section of the heat pipe. ELEGIANT manufac-
turer supplied the Aluminum finned HS that is utilized to
remove heat from the HP at the condenser section which
has a number of fins 18 and the dimensions of the HS are
180 mm × 100 mm × 45 mm. The heat is detached from the
HS (HP condenser) by using natural or forced convection
air produced by 12 V Dc fan. An air conditioner is used
to fix the surrounding temperature around the experimen-
tal setup constant. The cell performance was inspected
by measuring the cell temperature, output voltage and
ampere. Moreover, temperature distribution over the heat
pipe. Finally, the cell power and efficiency are calculated
to inspect the cooling system performance.
Heat sink
Solar simulator
Acquation center
Thermocouple
Power
regulator
13
 A. M. A. Soliman, H. Hassan

Fig. 2  The layout of the experi-

mental setup (dimension in mm) Solar

PV Simulator

Acrylic sheet
Heat sink
Solar cell
Acrylic sheet

Solar cell
Heat pipe

Air flow
Fan
30
Positions of measured temperatures
100
450
500

Measured values Table 1  Uncertainty of the measuring instruments

Parameter Instrument Uncertainty
During the experimental work, different measurements are
carried out by using different instruments. K-type thermo- Temperature Thermocouple type K ± 0.1 C
couples are utilized to measure cell and HP temperatures. Solar cell ampere Multimeter ± 0.017 A
The cell temperatures are measured at its center area. The Logging and voltage Data logger ± 0.05%
measurement
temperatures through the heat pipe length at a line passes
Incident radiation Pyranometer ± 3%
through its center are measured at distances of 30, 100, 250,
Air speed Thermo anemometer ± 1%
350, 450 mm from the starting of the evaporator section as
specified in Fig. 2. The output signals from the thermocou-
ples are measured by using a data logger of type Squirrel
SQ2040 Series GRANT, and the reading data from the data the uncertainty of the measuring instruments. Moreover, the
logger are registered on a laptop as stated in Fig. 1. The cell uncertainty Δ of any value z as cell efficiency resulted from
exit voltage is measured by utilizing the data logger, and the the experimental data is computed on the base of the next
output current is measured by a multimeter. Pyranometer equation [42–44].
of mark LI-200R is utilized to measure the intensity of the √
falling radiation from the simulator. Moreover, the air speed ( )2 ( )2
𝜕z 𝜕z (1)
Δ= Δ2x + Δ2y
at the inlet of the HS is measured by thermo anemometer 𝜕x 𝜕y
of type PROVA AVM-03 Primo instrument. The measure-
ments are carried out at steady-state conditions when the where the Δx uncertainty of measured value x and Δy of
maximum difference among two successive temperatures of measured values y. Rely on the previous formula, the maxi-
the supreme cell temperature is less than ­10−3 °C s−1. mum calculated daily cell efficiency and power errors are
found to be ± 0.6% and ± 0.10%, respectively.
Uncertainty and error analysis
Thermal equations
During this work, the uncertainty and error analysis is con-
sidered of the measured and calculated values. Moreover, all
The electrical cell efficiency [4, 45] is estimated by:
necessary precautions are considered to decrease as possible
the errors yielding from changing the surrounding condi- (2)
( )( )
𝜂c = 𝜂ref 1 − Tref Tc − Tref
tions and other related errors. For example, to carry out the
experiments under the same ambient temperature, the ambi- where 𝜂ref and 𝜂ref are constant which are supplied by the
ent temperature surrounding the experimental setup is con- producer datasheet at the given reference temperature
trolled by using an air conditioning unit. Table 1 indicates Tref = 25 °C and Tc is the average cell temperature in °C.

13
An experimental work on the performance of solar cell cooled by flat heat pipe
Electrical power of the cell module [4, 45] is estimated
by:
Pe = 𝜂c 𝜏g GWc Lc
where 𝜏g is the glass transmissivity, G is the falling solar
radiation in W m−2, and Lc and Wc, are the cell length and
width in m, respectively.
Results and discussion
The cell performance is inspected under diverse solar
radiation intensities changing from 500 to 3000 W m−2.
The study is performed under constant evaporator region
100 mm length which equals the solar cell width and under
two adiabatic and condenser regions. The first (1HS) repre-
sents 100 mm of the condenser region length which equals
the HS width and 300 mm the adiabatic region length. The
second (2HS) where the condenser region length represents
200 mm having a heat sink with the same width and the
adiabatic region length is 200 mm. Additionally, the study
is performed for forced and free convection airflow through
the HS fins. The cooled cell performance by utilizing the HP
is compared with the cell performance cooled directly by
using free convection cooling over the solar cell surface at a
radiation intensity of 500 W m−2 which is called “uncooled.”
Cell temperature and efficiency
Figure 3 illustrates the cell temperature change with falling
incident radiation intensity for different cooling techniques.
Moreover, the cell temperature for the uncooled case is
superimposed on Fig. 3. This figure reveals that the cell tem-
perature increases with rising the incident energy and for all
Fig. 3  Variation of cell tem-
perature with incident radiation
at diverse cooling rates
Solar cell temperature/°C
studied cooling cases, the cell temperature is lower than the
uncooled case. It also indicated that the forced convection
cooling is more performant in cooling the cell than the natu-
(3) ral convection cooling. Additionally, it is noted that the cell
temperature of natural convection cooling with 2HS is not
greater than the case of 1HS with forced convection. This
means that decreasing the adiabatic region with increasing
the condenser region increasing the cooling performance
of the heat pipe. It is observed that increasing the incident
energy 6 times for forced convection cooling augments the
cell temperature by approximately 57%, and 53.7% for 2HS
and 1HS, respectively. Using HP at 500 W m−2 incident radi-
ation decreases the HP temperature by about 36.3%, 40.9%,
43%, 46.3% for natural 1HS, natural 2HS, forced 1HS and
forced 2HS, respectively. The variant of the cell efficiency
based on cell temperature from Eq. 1 with incident radia-
tion at different cooling types is stated in Fig. 4. This figure
demonstrates that the cell efficiency decreases with rising
the falling solar energy because of rising the cell tempera-
ture despite the increase in the cell power as will be shown
later. This signifies that the cell temperature is the dominant
factor in the cell efficiency compared to cell power. It also
demonstrates that the cell efficiency for forced cooling is
greater than natural convection cooling due to reducing the
cell temperature like stated formerly. Additionally, in case
of using natural convection, cooling the cell with using HP
raises its efficiency compared to natural convection cooling
without heat pipe where it augments the cell efficiency by
about 13.5% and 15.3% for 1HS and 2HS, respectively at
incident radiation 500 W m−2. Moreover, using forced con-
vection cooling of the heat pipe raises the cell efficiency by
about 6.5% and 5.3% for 1HS and 2HS, respectively, com-
pared to natural convection of the HP at incident radiation
of 3000 W m−2.
75
70
65
60
Natural 1HS
55
Natural 2HS
50
Forced 1HS
45
Forced 2HS
40
35 Uncooled
30
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
Solar radiation/W m–2
13
 A. M. A. Soliman, H. Hassan

The HP temperature at different positions on the HP for
different incident radiation and cooling types is shown in
Fig. 5 for natural convection cooling and Fig. 6 for forced
convection cooling. Figures 5 and 6 reveal that the HP
temperature decreases from the evaporator region to the
condenser region and the temperature through the adiabatic
region is almost constant. They also indicate that the heat
pipe temperature in case of forced convection cooling is
lower than natural convection cooling. Moreover, it is noted
that the heat pipe temperatures lines for the different cases

Fig. 4  Variation of cell effi- 0.145

ciency with falling radiation at
diverse cooling rates
0.14

Natural 1HS

Solar cell efficiency

0.135
Natural 2HS
0.13
Forced 1HS
0.125
Forced 2HS
0.12
Uncooled

0.115
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
Solar radiation/W m–2

Fig. 5  HP temperature at differ- 45

ent positions for free convection
cooling 43
Natural 1HS
41
Heat pipe temperature/°C

500
39
37 Natural 1HS
1000
35
33 Natural 1HS
1500
31
29 Natural 1HS
27 2000

25
0 100 200 300 400 500
Position on heat pipe/mm

Fig. 6  Temperature evolution of 45

the HP at different positions for 43 Forced 1HS 500
forced convection air cooling
Heat pipe temperature/°C

41
Forced 1HS 1000
39
37 Forced 1HS 1500
35
33 Forced 1HS 2000
31
Forced 1HS 2500
29
27
Forced 1HS 3000
25
0 100 200 300 400 500
Position on heat pipe/mm

13
An experimental work on the performance of solar cell cooled by flat heat pipe

are approximately parallel (maximum HP temperature differ-
ence is nearly the same). This signifies that the temperature
drop through the HP length is about constant, and the impact
of the cooling technique is on the overall heat pipe tem-
perature. This is maybe due to the HP performance depends
mainly on the internal HP properties) working fluid, wick
type, HP cross section dimensions, region dimensions, etc.).
Cell power
The evolution of the output cell voltage with its output cur-
rent at different loads (I–V curve) is shown in Figs. 7 and 8
in case of forced and free convection cooling, respectively.
Figures 7 and 8 reveal that the output voltage decreases with
increasing the output current depending on the cell load.
They also indicate that the output voltage increases with
increasing the incident radiation intensity and increasing
the cooling rates of the HP condenser because reducing the
cell temperature. Moreover, the output cell current increases
with increasing the radiation intensity. The figures also
illustrate that after a certain solar intensity, the cell current
reaches its maximum value which depends on the tested cell
characteristics. If the results of Figs. 7 and 8 are compared,
it is stated that the I–V characteristic trend of the tested solar
cell doesn’t change from forced and free convection cooling
of the HS. However, the output voltage increases in case of

Fig. 7  Variation of cell voltage Forced 1HS 500 Forced 1HS 1000 Forced 1HS 1500
with the current for forced cool-
ing of the condenser Forced 1HS 2000 Forced 1HS 2500 Forced 1HS 3000

14

12

10

8
Voltage/V

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
Current/A

Fig. 8  Variation of cell voltage Natural 1HS 500 Natural 1HS 1000
with the current for free cooling Natural 1HS 1500 Natural 1HS 2000
of the condenser 10
9
8
7
Voltage/V

6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
Current/A

13
 A. M. A. Soliman, H. Hassan

forced convection compared to free convection due to reduc-
ing cell temperature as specified before and the cell output
current is nearly the same for forced and free convection
cooling. The theoretical maximum power of the cell calcu-
lated based on short circuit current × open-circuit voltage at
different incident radiation energies is illustrated in Fig. 9.
This figure indicates that the maximum cell power rises with
increasing the incident radiation power and with increas-
ing the condenser cooling. It is specified that increasing the
radiation energy from 500 to 2000 increases the maximum
cell power by about 172% and 134% for forced and free air
convection cooling of the HS, respectively.
Figure 10 shows the output electrical power from the cell
for different incident radiation intensities and at cooling
rates based on the cell efficiency in Eq. 3. Figure 10 reveals
that the cell exit power in case of cell cooled by using heat
pipe for natural or forced convection air is greater than the
uncooled cell (Free convection cooling of the cell without
using HP). It also indicates that the cell power for forced
convection cooling is greater than free convection cooling
due to reducing the cell temperature as declared formerly
and increasing the HP condenser region rises its output
power (Output power is greater in case of 2HS than 1HS),
and this effect increases with rising the incident radiation
intensity on the surface of the cell. It is noticed that using
HP in cooling the cell increases its output power by about
24.3% compared to the uncooled solar cell for incident radia-
tion 500 W m−2. Moreover, using forced convection cooling
with a double HP area increases the cell output power by
about 9.1% compared to one HS at 3000 W m−2. Increasing
the falling radiation intensity by 6 times increases the cell
power output by about 5.4 times. By comparing the results
of Figs. 9 and 10, it is found that the cell output power for
forced convection cooling represents about 24.3% and 47%

Fig. 9  Variation of theoretical 8.5

maximum cell power output
with incident radiation Natural 1HS
7.5

6.5 Forced 1HS

Maximum power/W

5.5

4.5

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Solar radiation/W m–2

Fig. 10  Variation of cell power 4

output with incident radiation at
diverse cooling rates 3.5
Electrical power/W

2.5 Natural 1HS

Natural 2HS
2
Forced 1HS
1.5
Forced 2HS

1 Uncooled

0.5
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Solar radiation/W m–2

13
An experimental work on the performance of solar cell cooled by flat heat pipe
of the maximum cell power at 500 W m−2 and 3000 W m−2,
respectively.
Conclusions
An experimental work is carried out on the concentrated
solar cell performance cooled by a flat heat pipe. The solar
cell represents the heat pipe evaporator while the heat pipe
condenser is cooled by using a finned heat sink with rec-
tangular fins. The cell is subjected to different solar radia-
tion incident simulated by a solar simulator. The study is
carried out at different condenser and adiabatic regions
of the HP and at forced and free convection air cooling of
the HS. The findings illustrate that increasing the radiation
intensity increases the cell temperature and decreases its
efficiency. Using HP with natural convection cooled heat
sink of 100 mm condenser length decreases the solar cell
temperature and increases its efficiency by about 36.3%,
and 13.6%, respectively, compared with natural convection
cooling of the cell without using the heat pipe. Increasing
the HP condenser region and decreasing its adiabatic region
increase the cell efficiency and exit power and reduces its
temperature. The trend of the I–V characteristic of the tested
cell does not change due to rising airflow through the heat
sink. However, the output voltage increases in case of forced
convection compared to free convection rising the radiation
intensity incident on the cell 6 times increases the cell power
output by about 5.4 times. The impact of heat pipe length on
the cell cooling performance can also be studied.
Acknowledgements It is our pleasure to acknowledge Ministry of
Higher Education (MoHE) of Egypt for providing a scholarship to
conduct this work as well as the Egypt-Japan University of Science
and Technology (E-JUST) and Japan International Cooperation Agency
(JICA) for supplying the facility, tools, and equipment needed to con-
duct this research work.
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