Evaluation of the electrical performance of a photovoltaic thermal system using nano-enhanced paraffin and nanofluids

Performance degradation of photovoltaic modules occurs when cell temperature increases; this is due to losses within the cell and the effect of surrounding weather as well. An increase in cell temperature leads to a decrease in the open-circuit voltage and hence, the electrical power produced by the PV. A nanofluid and nano-PCM (paraffin wax)-based PV/T hybrid collector has been employed in this paper. The experiments focus on the electrical performance and charac-teristics of the PV module under the weather conditions of Bangi-Malaysia. The cooling technique used is attaching the module to a nano-PCM tank and running nanofluids within. The results from the experimental tests show a maximum PV efficiency of 13.7% under operation for PV/T col-lector as appose to conventional PV module, which achieved an efficiency of 7.1%, which is suitable relative to the efficiency of 14% under standard testing conditions.