Development of a thermal model for a hybrid photovoltaic module and phase change materials storage integrated in buildings

The performance of building integrated photovoltaic modules (PV) situated outdoors suffers from attained high temperatures due to irradiation as a negative temperature coefficient of their efficiency. Phase change materials (PCMs) are investigated as an option to manage the thermal regulation of photovoltaic modules and, hence, enhance their electrical efficiency. In this study a transient one-dimensional energy balance model has been developed to investigate the thermal performance of a photovoltaic module integrated with PCM storage system. Possible all heat transfer mechanisms are described to have a basic and step by step fundamental knowledge to analyze and understand the complex heat transfer characteristics of the PV-PCM system. Finite difference scheme is applied to discretize the energy balance equation while fully implicit scheme is applied to discretize the heat balance in the PCM module. Three different PCM of different melting temperatures were investigated. The numerical result is validated with experimental studies from the literature. The result indicates that PCM are shown to be an effective means of limiting the temperature rise in the PV devices thus increasing the thermal performance up to 5%. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.