A novel multifunctional PV/thermal/daylighting (PV/T/D) panel based on incorporation of miniature prismatic structure and transpired solar collector

This study presents a novel multifunctional PV/Thermal/Daylighting (PV/T/D) roof panel suitable for atrium buildings and large green houses. The panel contains an array of miniature dielectric compound parabolic concentrators (CPCs) to provide concentration of the solar radiation coming from a certain range of sky angles and meanwhile allow the rest of solar radiation to transmit for daylighting. As a result, the panel will also provide a solar shading function and an option to incorporate concentrating PV for PV/Thermal applications. A novel heat recovery design using the concept of transpired solar collection is adopted to remove heat rejection from PV cells and reduce heat gain to the atrium (or green house) space to mitigate the summer overheating problem. Design and fabrication of a small sample panel consisting of an array of miniature CPCs are described. A commercial optical analysis software Photopia is used to predict the transmittance values of the dielectric CPC panel and meanwhile CFD modelling is employed to predict the performance of heat recovery. Some preliminary testing of this panel under real sky conditions is also described. Furthermore, the energy performance of the proposed roof panel is evaluated for an educational building in Nottingham using EnergyPlus simulation.