VICTORIA TIMCHENKO

University of New South Wales, Sidney

Solar PV systems with enhanced passive cooling and ventilation

 

BIO

Dr Timchenko is the Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, the University of New South Wales, Sydney. She completed her Honours Degree in Physics at the Kharkiv State University, Ukraine, and her PhD in Engineering at the Institute for Problems in Machinery, The Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Kharkiv. Her areas of expertise are computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and heat transfer. Research interests include enhancing the sustainability and efficiency of solar energy systems; thermal management of building integrated photovoltaic systemsand automotive devices; nanoparticle hyperthermia for biomedical applications.

A/Prof Timchenko has published 4 book chapters, 137 journal papers and 113 conference papers. She has served as an Australian Research Council (ARC) assessor and a reviewer for multiple high impact journals. She has been a Committee Member of international conferences; Member of the Scientific Council of International Centre of Heat and Mass Transfer and of the Assembly of International Heat Transfer Conferences (one of 2 delegates from Australia).

 

ABSTRACT

The application of renewable energies such as solar energy in the building sector has increased notably considering the adverse impacts of climate change on human life; hence many studies have focused on the application of photovoltaic panels in buildings. A major problem with photovoltaic panels is that their electrical performance and lifespan decrease with an increase of their temperature.   This keynote lecture will present an overview of computational and experimental research undertaken at the UNSW Sydney on development of a passive cooling method, which enhances convection heat flux on the module’s rear surface for both stand alone and rooftop PV systems. The effects of radiation and natural convection flow in a solar chimney coupled to a room with application to building-integrated photovoltaics will be also presented.