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 b reakthrough is continously undertaken to increase the efficiency of th e hardware converting sunlight into useful energy. There are two metho ds to utilized solar energy, photovoltaic - the direct conversion of s un light beam into electrical energy and thermal method, the utilizati on of the sun's dissipated heat into useful applications. Applying bot h methods into one system enable the use of solar energy into the maxi mum. This results to a hybrid system called Photovoltaic-Thermal syste m. This paper evaluates the system from the Saudi Arabian environmenta l condition. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights re served.