Thermal management of solar photovoltaic panels using a fibre Bragg grating sensor-based temperature monitoring

Solar photovoltaic (PV) performance is affected by increased panel temperature. Maintaining an optimal PV panel temperature is essential for sustaining performance and maximizing the productive life of solar PV panels. Current temperature sensors possess a long response time and low resolution and accuracy. Advanced fibre-optic sensors offer distinct advantages of greater accuracy, a more comprehensive range, and a very high sampling rate. The present experimental work focuses on fibre Bragg grating sensor-based solar PV panel temperature monitoring. The unique capabilities of fibre-optic sensors are demonstrated by studying the rapid perturbations in panel temperature over time for indoor and outdoor conditions. The effects of incident radiation flux and the inclination angle on panel temperature are analyzed. Temperature sensitivity of 6 pm/°C is obtained. The results are helpful in dynamic monitoring of panel temperature, understanding the thermal interactions at the microscale level, and streamlining the measured temperature of multiple panels on solar farms. Thus, the proposed advanced method of FBG-based temperature monitoring of solar panels could be helpful to operate an integrated cooling system to improve the performance of solar panels.