PASSIVE THERMAL MANAGEMENT OF PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULES USING LATENT HEAT STORAGE SYSTEM WITH METALLIC MESH LAYERS AND MULTI-METAL SPINEL OXIDE NANOPARTICLES

Abstract

Passive thermal management of photovoltaic (PV) panels is an effective and low-cost method for reducing the surface temperature and improving the power output of these systems. In the current study, it is aimed to upgrade the efficiency of a PV system using a latent heat storage system with metallic mesh layers and multi-metal spinel oxide nanoparticles. The experimental part of this work contains two stages. In the first stage, three PV systems including an unmodified PV, an LHSS (only paraffin)-integrated PV system, and an LHSS-integrated PV system modified with metallic mesh layers have been considered. As a result of the initial test, the PV system with mesh layers added LHSS gave the best performance results. In the second experiment, the mesh layer-integrated LHSS of the PV system was modified with MgOAl<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> nanoparticles for enhanced thermal conductivity and was compared with the PV system with mesh layer-integrated LHSS containing only paraffin. According to the experimental results of this work, applying different types of LHSS configurations significantly reduced the surface temperature of the PV panel. Average module efficiencies for all cases were attained within the range of 7.80--.16%. The overall outcomes of the present work showed that using an LHSS with MgOAl<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> nanoparticles-doped paraffin and metallic mesh layers upgraded the normalized power output efficiency and performance ratio of the unmodified system as 17.43% and 15.72%, respectively.