NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF A PHOTOVOLTAIC-THERMAL SOLAR COLLECTOR WITH PCM EMBEDDED IN HIGHLY CONDUCTIVE POROUS MATERIAL

Solar photovoltaic (PV) system harness the energy from the sunlight and convert into clean electricity to power homes and businesses. During an operation the solar panels get hot, the electrons inside the solar cells pick up that extra heat energy which puts them in a more excited state and when they are already excited, they have less room to absorb the energy from sunlight. As a result, electrical performance of a PV system reduces with increase in solar cell temperature. Efficiency of PV panels can be retained by establishing a hybrid PV-Thermal (PV-T) system. In this study, container filled with phase change material (PCM) embedded in porous metal is attached to back surface of the PV cell. As well as, to extract the excess heat from the PV cell, water is used as a heat transfer fluid (HTF) with constant mass flow rate of 30 kg/hr. During the simulation melting rate of PCM, amount of latent heat energy stored, thermal, electrical and overall efficiencies of the PV panel is studied and compared with the conventional PV-T system. The results show the enhanced melting fraction of PCM by 6% and 8% for the PV-T/PCM/Cu and PV-T/PCM/Al system, respectively compared with PV-T/PCM system. Moreover, in comparison with the conventional PV-T system, the overall efficiency of the PV-T/PCM/Cu and PV-T/PCM/Al is increased by 10.62% and 8.80%, respectively.

Automated summary

By establishing a hybrid PV-Thermal (PV-T) system with phase change material (PCM) embedded in porous metal attached to the back surface of the PV cell, the study shows a significant enhancement in the overall efficiency of the PV panel compared to conventional PV-T systems. The results indicate a higher melting fraction of PCM and increased overall efficiency for the new PV-T/PCM/Cu and PV-T/PCM/Al systems.