PhD project: Next-generation hybrid PV-X technologies for the sustainable, independent provision of solar heat, power, clean water, fuels and other renewable vectors

Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

Applications accepted all year round

About the Project

The uptake of technologies that can harness solar energy to cater to diverse energy demands in buildings has been increasing markedly. In these applications, photovoltaic (PV) panels are used for power generation whereas solar-thermal collectors are used for low-temperature water heating. However, the possibility of using so-called ‘hybrid’ solar PV-thermal (PV-T) collectors has recently emerged, as these can meet varying building/user demands for power, water or space heating from a single device, while offering significant benefits in overall affordability and performance (e.g. emission reductions), especially where roof-space is limited.

Of note in this context is that PV panels are typically less than 20% efficient in delivering electricity from the Sun’s energy with the remainder lost to the environment as waste heat. At the same time, PV panels experience a deterioration in performance (efficiency) when they are operated at higher temperatures. This loss has motivated the development of the aforementioned hybrid PV-T collector technologies, which combine PV cells with a contacting fluid flow. The fluid is used to recover some of the waste heat from the cells, thus delivering a potentially useful thermal output from the collector, while simultaneously cooling the cells and increasing their electrical efficiency. In this project we will propose a new concept, that we refer to as ‘PV-X’ solar collectors, which harnesses additional performance benefits when these secondary processes are integrated synergistically with the PV cells and performed directly within the collector. In this way, a single solar device can deliver solar heat, power, clean water, fuels and other renewable vectors.

We intend to design a new type of collector, and to optimise the design to maximize the combined efficiency of all generated vectors, in particular by introducing a spectral-splitting concept. This will allow us to enhance the thermal energy captured by the collector without unnecessarily heating the PV cells, thereby also enabling an increase in electrical performance. Challenges associated with solar intermittency, variable demand patterns and heat rejection from these systems may also be explored through integration with energy storage. We will then fabricate a test a first-of-a-king hybrid PV-X collector.

The Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London offers an advanced 3-4-year research degree that provides in-depth specialist training and knowledge in a topical area pertaining to Chemical Engineering and related Engineering and Science disciplines. The Department has state-of-the-art experimental and computational facilities and is the home of the Automated high-throughput platform suite, the Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering and the Sustainable Futures Lab.