4E experimental investigation of concentrated solar cell cooling via system of heat dissipator-phase change material

Abstract

Low-concentrator solar cell (SC) experimentally cooled using a new composite thermal regulation system of heat dissipator (HD) and phase change material (PCM) is investigated. The impact of area ratio (AR; HD area/SC area) of 1.5 and 2 at different HD thicknesses (h) on the system performance is reported. An energy, exergy, economic, and enviroeconomic assessments for the different cooling systems used for the SC thermal regulation are presented. The results show that the SC temperature reduction increases with increasing the HD thickness and AR. Compared with reference SC, SC-PCM/HD (AR=2/h = 3) achieves a maximum temperature reduction of 24 °C compared with 9.1 °C and 21.8 °C for SC-PCM and SC-HD, respectively. Moreover, SC-PCM/HD cooling system achieves the maximum enhancement in the average electrical efficiency and power output of 11.88 % and 12 %, respectively, compared with reference SC. The PCM thermal energy storage rate and PV system efficiency increase with increasing area ratio and decreasing the HD thickness. Using HD of (AR=2/h = 1) in conjunction with PCM yields the most favorable PCM thermal performance where it enhances the thermal energy storage, rate of energy storage, and overall thermal system efficiency by 9.5 %, 40 %, and 20.36 %, respectively, compared with using PCM only. Moreover, the PCM/HD cooling system is more economical than using PCM or HD only, and reference SC, with a maximum cost saving of 41.7 % compared with reference SC. The SC-PCM/HD cooling system is the most eco-friendly option with net CO2 mitigation and ψCO2 of 146.2 kg and 5.84$, respectively compared with 143.7 kg and 5.74$, respectively for SC-PCM.