Minimizing CO2 Emissions of Photovoltaic Thermal Model in North America

In this paper, CO2 emission reduction of Photovoltaic Thermal model for residential load has been investigated and evaluated for four different PV coverage area cases of PVT (20%, 40%, 60% and 80%). The analysis is conducted by using a data set of weather conditions of a city in North America over one year. CO2 emission reduction is evaluated for each month for the different cases in this work. The percentage of PV coverage area which leads in minimizing CO2 emissions for each month is determined. The results show that; specific PV coverage area values are selected for each month to maximize the annual CO2 emission reduction. Results also show that a better performance of the annual CO2 emission reduction can be obtained using the variable PV coverage area values compared to the fixed PV coverage area values of the PVT system during a year. Two different models are proposed. The first model evaluates the CO2 emissions reduction for each month at different PV coverage area ratio. The second model evaluates the PV coverage ratio for maximum CO2 emissions reduction for each month.