Abstract
The contribution of renewable energy to the worldwide sustainable development and environmental preservation has been widely recognized nowadays. Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) system, in particular, has received an extensive research effort as one of the most promising applications of solar energy. Due to the high concentration r1atio, a significant increase in the CPV temperature occurs. Consequently, the conversion efficiency deteriorates; thereby thermal regulation of a CPV system is of great importance. Therefore, a hybrid system including CPV, and phase change material (PCM) is considered as a single module to achieve higher solar conversion efficiency. Such a system provides a high-energy storage density at a constant temperature which corresponds to the phase transition temperature of the material. In the present study, a comprehensive model for CPV layers integrated with PCM was developed. This model was a coupled of a thermal model for CPV layers and fluid dynamic heat transfer model that took into account the phase-change phenomenon using enthalpy method, and the conversion of solar incident radiations. The effects of specific two variables on the solar cell temperature were investigated which were the PCM thickness of 50, 100, and 200 mm and concentration ratio (CR) from 5 to 20. It was found that the use of PCM could achieve a significant reduction of solar cell temperature. The solar cell temperature reduced from 180 °C to 38 °C by using PCM of thickness 200 mm at CR=5, while at the same PCM thickness, the cell temperature reduced from 510°C to 64°C at CR=20. Furthermore, the solar cell temperature was maintained at an average temperature of 38 °C for 8.4 hours using a 200 mm thickness of PCM at CR=5. In addition, at CR=20, the solar cell temperature was maintained at an average temperature of 64 °C for 2.0 hours using a 200 mm thickness of PCM. From the results, it was indicated that the use of PCM was an effective cooling technique since it attained a significant reduction in solar cell temperature, especially at high concentration ratio.
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