US Company Sets World's First Hybrid PV/ Solar Thermal Panel Cooling System

U.S. companies set up the world's first hybrid photovoltaic/solar thermal panel cooling system. Chromasun, a rooftop solar company in the Silicon Valley of Meiyuan, announced in mid-December 2011 that it had installed the world’s first solar technology, a hybrid photovoltaic panel-coupled solar thermal cooling system, as shown in Figure 1.



Figure 1. Hybrid PV/solar panel cooling system

The project was deployed in September 2011 in San Jose, California.

This project pioneered the use of newly developed Chromasun hybrid photovoltaic panels and solar cooling systems. By harnessing the sun's energy to generate electricity, and then using waste heat to drive an absorption chiller, the Chromasun system can provide more useful energy to buildings than previous methods, which is particularly useful for large-scale power and cooling load facilities. .

Traditional solar photovoltaic panels can only harvest 15% of the solar energy, while the new hybrid technology can harvest more than 75%.