Solar Photovoltaic Panels with Finned Phase Change Material Heat Sinks

Preeti Singh, Sourav Khanna, Sanjeev Newar, Vashi Sharma, K. Srinivas Reddy, Tapas K. Mallick, Victor Becerra, Jovana Radulovic, David Hutchinson and Rinat Khusainov
Additional contact information
Preeti Singh: Simulate Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh 208016, India
Sourav Khanna: School of Energy and Electronic Engineering, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3DJ, UK
Sanjeev Newar: Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, IIT Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh 208016, India
Vashi Sharma: Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh 208016, India
K. Srinivas Reddy: Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras, Chennai 600036, India
Tapas K. Mallick: Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn TR10 9FE, UK
Victor Becerra: School of Energy and Electronic Engineering, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3DJ, UK
Jovana Radulovic: School of Mechanical and Design Engineering, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3DJ, UK
David Hutchinson: Faculty of Technology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3AH, UK
Rinat Khusainov: School of Computing, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3DJ, UK

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: Phase change material (PCM) based passive cooling of photovoltaics (PV) can be highly productive due to high latent heat capacity. However, the low rate of heat transfer limits its usefulness. Thus, the presented work aims at the improvement in PV cooling by using finned PCM (FPCM) heat sinks. In the present study, PCM heat sink and FPCM heat sinks were investigated numerically for PV cooling and the extracted heat is used for space heating. 4 kWp PV, PV-PCM and PV-FPCM systems were studied under the weather conditions of Southeast of England. It was observed that the PCM heat sinks can drop the peak PV temperature by 13 K, whereas FPCM heat sinks can enhance the PV cooling by 19 K. The PCM heat sinks can increase the PV electrical efficiency from 13% to 14%. Moreover, the daily electricity generation can be boosted by 7% using PCM and 8% by using FPCM heat sinks. In addition, 7 kWh of thermal output was achieved using the FPCM heat sink, and the overall efficiency of system increased from 13% to 19%.

Keywords: photovoltaics; phase change material; thermal management; thermal energy storage; electricity enhancement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/10/2558/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/10/2558/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:10:p:2558-:d:359799

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().