Cooling of Concentrated Photovoltaic System Using Various Configurations of Phase-Change Material Heat Sink

In the current work, a hybrid system including Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) and phase change material (PCM) as a heat sink is considered as a single module to achieve high solar conversion efficiency. The main objective is to accelerate the thermal dissipation with a longer thermal regulation period. Thus, a new CPV-PCM system using various configurations of the PCM heat sink and different combinations of PCMs is investigated. This study presents a numerical simulation of the effects of PCM materials and designs on the CPV-PCM system performance. To estimate the thermal performance of the new CPV-PCM system, a comprehensive 2-D model for CPV layers integrated with PCMs is developed. This model couples a thermal model for CPV layers and a thermo-fluid model that considers the phase-change phenomenon using the enthalpy method. The model is numerically simulated at different configurations and combinations of PCM with various ranges of phase transition temperatures. Three different configurations of PCMs are investigated: one with a single cavity, and two with parallel arrangements including three and five cavities. Results indicate that the use of PCM heat sinks with three and five cavities increases the heat transfer inside the PCM and achieves a significant reduction of the solar cell temperature compared with a single cavity CPV-PCM system. Furthermore, thermal regulation effect and temperature uniformity of the CPV-PCM system is enhanced by using various combinations of PCMs.