Numerical and experimental performance analysis of PCM based photovoltaic thermal system/Fayaz Hussain

摘要: Climate change due to global warming is the major on-going concern among the scientists and governments. Fossil fuels play the major role in both global warming and world’s mainstream energy resources on which global economy is almost fully dependent. However, these harmful fossil fuels are fast depleting, creating the situation of low supply and high demand along with environmental pollution. Therefore, many researchers from all over the world have researched new energy sources, which are clean and non-depleting. Abundantly available solar energy is the best option of harnessing clean and non-depleting energy among the other renewable energy resources. Irradiations incident on the photovoltaic module are not fully converted into electrical energy as PV modules convert only 15-20% with the rest are lost into heat conversion. Incorporation of thermal collectors into photovoltaic panels has two-fold advantages of increasing PV module efficiency through highest irradiations and hot water for different applications. However, low heat transfer from PV module to the thermal collector and other technical complications result in the overall reduced performance of the system. There is still need of research numerically based on 3D models to understand and investigate their performance thoroughly. Heat transfer of the system greatly depends on the design and material of the thermal collector and flow path of working fluid along with its method/technic of contact with PV module. To deal with these problems, a new design of thermal collector has been introduced for increasing the efficiency of the photovoltaic system regarding electrical …