Photovoltaic-thermal solar energy experiment in Saudi Arabia

Solar energy is now globally utilized as an alternative energy source. The sun's power is an infinite source of energy and that technology breakthrough is continously undertaken to increase the efficiency of the hardware converting sunlight into useful energy. There are two methods to utilized solar energy, photovoltaic - the direct conversion of sun light beam into electrical energy and thermal method, the utilization of the sun's dissipated heat into useful applications. Applying both methods into one system enable the use of solar energy into the maximum. This results to a hybrid system called Photovoltaic-Thermal system. This paper evaluates the system from the Saudi Arabian environmental condition. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.