Abstract
This study was conducted experimentally to investigate the effect of cooling on the efficiency of concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) systems using phase change materials (PCMs). The influence of the type of PCM, sun concentration factor, and volume of the cooling tank was also examined. An experimental setup was built to test the CPV system. A concentrator with a surface area of 0.36 cm2 and a panel with dimensions of 7 × 13 cm2 were utilized. A cooling tank was used behind the panel that was filled with PCM and latently absorbed the heat produced by the panel during electricity generation. The results showed that using PCM with higher latent heat led to better results. Also, increasing the concentration factor and increasing the volume of the cooling tank increased the system power. It was indicated that using paraffin C38 results in a 280 % increase in power output, compared to a 144 % increase when paraffin C20 is utilized, relative to scenarios without any PCM. A PCM tank with a thickness of 1 cm yielded approximately a 70 % boost in power output. This enhancement increased to about 104 % with a 2 cm thick tank and reached around 214 % with a 3 cm thick tank.
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