Experimental and numerical investigation of integrated system between cooled photovoltaic and wall-inserted PCM/FOM thermal energy storage box

Abstract

Photovoltaic cooling has become important in order to reduce the operating temperature and increase the electrical generation, efficiency, and useable time. The extract heat produced by this cooling process could either be used immediately or stored for later use. In this study, many goals were examined through experimental and numerical investigation. They included the effect of cooling the photovoltaic panels and the potential to use the heat removed by the PV cooling system as well as how to store it in a thermal energy storage box (TESB). This box, made of paraffin wax as a phase change material and supported by stainless steel foam, has been installed into a test wall for heating at later time. The test wall was a component of an insulated test room that was linked to the cooling systems of the photovoltaic panel, to be the integrated system. According to the study, there is plenty of potential for storing the heat energy that the PV cooling system removes and using it later from the thermal energy storage box. After using the integrated system, the mean useful energy increased by 83% from 39.2 W for the uncooled PV panel to 71.7 W for the integrated system. The maximum PV electrical generated outputs for uncooled and water-cooled panels were 40.9 W and 43.3 W, respectively. The efficiency of uncooled and water cooled PV panels was 14.2% and 14.7%, respectively and dramatically increased to 25.9% for the integrated system.