fairfolio
Saved Projects

The Effect of Water Cooling on Solar Panels

CSEF · 2017 Alternative Energy (Junior Division Only)

Olivia G. Petty · Clear Creek School, Grass Valley, Nevada County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this experiment was to see if cooling the surface of a solar panel with water would increase its energy output. Methods/Materials I used two solar panels, two volt meters, and two 60 watt lights. Tubing, a glass pane, a water container and a water pump were used to build the water system. The water is pumped over the surface of the panel between it and the glass pane affixed on top of it. I cooled one solar panel with the water system and measured the energy output compared to the uncooled panel. Results The solar panels were placed under the lights and their energy outputs measured at 5 minute intervals. The results showed that as time passed, the energy output of the uncooled solar panel decreased from 19 volts to 17 volts while the energy output of the cooled solar panel increased from 19 volts to almost 20 volts after 15 minutes. Conclusions/Discussion After several trials of testing the energy outputs of the cooled and uncooled solar panels, I concluded that using water to cool solar panels does increase its energy output while the uncooled solar panel's energy output decreased as the surface temperature increased. This experiment demonstrated that using water on the surface of a solar panel to keep it cool will help it create more energy.

Summary statement

For this project I developed a surface water cooling system for solar panels and found that it increased the panel's energy output.

Help received

I designed the water system and conducted the experiment by myself and my dad helped me to build it.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2017 Alternative Energy (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0217

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google