Evolution of Photovoltaic-Thermal Hybrid Solar Technology for the Tropics: A Case Study of Malaysia

Solar energy has been accepted as one of the sources of energy of today. One of the technologies is photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) hybrid solar technology. It is one of solar energy technologies which has the potential for future energy applications. New technology developments in solar energy utilization are expected to result in the improvement of both electrical and thermal performances of the collectors at lower production cost. The current popular technology converts solar energy into electricity and heat separately. The effort has been made to generate electrical and thermal energy simultaneously by using photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) hybrid system. The synchronization of PV/T system led to the development of PV/T air-based and PV/T water-based systems and PV/T with nano-fluid-based systems. This paper presents an overview of PV/T systems, including the photovoltaic-thermal combination system (PV/T Combi), with a combination of photovoltaic panel with air- and water-based systems as one unit. This paper also describes our experience in introducing the system for cottage industry in Malaysia. The research activities on the PV/T systems were carried out at the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, since the early 1980s.