The present work is aimed at developing thermal
and electrical models which are capable of estimating the two
dimensional thermal and electrical performance of a PV module
under given meteorological conditions. The thermal modeling
has been developed in COMSOL Multiphysics software
environment and the electrical modeling has been carried out in
PSIM software environment. The main objective of the
electrical model is to investigate the I-V and P-V characteristics
of an 80W thin film PV module with and without cooling at
varying surface temperature and irradiation. In the thermal
model, the dependence of module surface temperature, electrical
efficiency, and thermal efficiency on water flow velocity is
investigated. The results obtained from the proposed electrical
and thermal models are validated experimentally. The results
showed that the maximum electrical, thermal and net energy
efficiency values of cooled PV module are 9.92%, 55.6%, and
65.4%, respectively. Variation of water flow velocity
experiences no significant temperature change in the coolant
water exiting the module and results in a slight change of both
the module surface temperature and electrical efficiency.