Abstract
A hybrid solar panel which consists of photovoltaic (PV) panels and a laminated heat collector has been commercialized in Japan. It is necessary to improve the collector efficiency, i. e., to reduce heat loss in order to realize hybrid solar panel applications in cold climate regions. The experiments were conducted with commercial scale panel modules mainly under a solar simulator. The result suggested that natural convection in the heat insulating space was the dominant heat loss process from the cover glass. The heat insulation gap was divided into many small cells with grids such as honeycomb and partition plate to prevent natural convection. The natural convection was well prevented, as a result, the heat loss from cover glass was reduced with installation of the grid in the heat insulation space. There was no dependence of the incident angle upon the collector efficiency of the panel module with the cells in spite of effective area decrease with shadow.
