Influence of cover ratio of PV cells and glass cover on the performance of the PV solar assisted heat pump

The PV solar assisted heat pump (PV-SAHP) can generate electricity and thermal energy from solar radiation simultaneously. Change in the cover ratio of PV cells leads to an opposite influence on the photovoltaic and thermal performance: the increase of the PV cells cover ratio is advantageous to the photovoltaic process but adverse to the photothermic process. Additionally, the use of glass cover also leads to a similar influence. To evaluate the performance of PV-SAHP, based on the dynamic distributed parameter model of the system and the second law of thermodynamics, the effects of PV cells cover ratio and glass cover were contrastively analyzed. The results show that the increase of the PV cells cover ratio is advantageous to the performance of the system, while the use of glass cover is adverse to the performance of the system.