| Summary: | Due to rapid industrialization, and depletion of fossil fuels, alternative renewable resources are mandatory, where solar thermal energy is one of the promising alternate. In this study, an experimental investigation was conducted to analyze the thermal performance of different photovoltaic-modules under varying climate conditions. These include thin plate Copper indium diselenide, mono-crystalline silicon, micro crystalline silicone, amorphous silicon and poly-crystalline silicon. The analysis was concentrated on the evaluation of module efficiency, solar irradiance absorption rate, maximum power output, performance ratio, normalized power output efficiency and temperature effect on each module at real operational outdoor conditions. Mono-crystalline silicon module showed high average efficiency of 20.8% and average performance ratio 1.21 compared to the other PV modules. It was observed that all types of modules have higher average temperature in summer season and showed low performance ratio and low module efficiency as compared to winter season. Average normalized power out of mono-crystalline silicon 56.2% more efficient than the other modules. The increased thermal performance of mono-crystalline silicon was related with its high absorption rate and high conduction rate. Thus, mono-crystalline silicon PV module is the best potential candidate for solar capturing technique to be utilize in diverse solar thermal energy applications.
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