Assimilation of a novel thermal collector and phase change material in photovoltaic/thermal system - An energy and exergy based comparative study

The efficiency of the photovoltaic (PV) panel's solar energy conversion into usable power is significantly influenced by the elevated temperature of the PV cell. The hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system, on the other hand, is not very efficient overall because the collector profile was not chosen correctly and the PV module temperature changes too quickly, limiting its useful life. This research improved the performance of a PV/T hybrid system by employing a novel butterfly-shaped serpentine flow collector and Hydrated Salt (HS36) Phase Change Materials (PCM). The energy and exergy performances of the PV/T, PV/T-PCM systems are evaluated at diverse volume flow rates of water and compared with orthodox uncooled PV modules. The maximum average overall efficiency of the PV/T and PV/T-PCM systems is chronicled as 79.36 % and 94.05 % at 2 lpm water flow rate, respectively. The suggested PV/T and PV/T-PCM systems outclass the reference PV system in terms of total average exergy efficiency by 13.90 % and 23.54 %, respectively. The PV/T system integrated with a novel BSF profile and HS36 PCM showed more efficiency in capturing solar energy. It provides more opportunities for exploring and developing PV/T systems compared to the orthodox PV system.