Effect of new overhead phase change material enclosure designs on thermo-electric performance of a photovoltaic panel

Photovoltaic (PV) panel harvests solar energy into electric energy; however, its electric conversion efficiency is very low and most of incoming radiation is wasted as heat to the surroundings. Electric performance of PV panel is badly affected by increased PV cell temperature as result of this wasted heat. A new design concept of overhead phase change material (PCM) enclosure design attached with a photovoltaic panel has been investigated. Various design configurations studied and based on the melting front characteristics, an optimum final design is proposed. The new design enhances the solar radiation gain (ratio of utilized to unutilized radiation) by about 17 times the conventional PV system. Higher solar radiation utilization manifests in about 10% increase in energy storage density. With strategic distribution of PCM, duration of quasi-steady regime where convection dominates, has been increased that manifested into higher melting rates of PCM compared to the conventional rectangular design. The study revealed that electrical conversion efficiency of PV panel can approach to about 12% if suitable strategies are adopted as demonstrated in this paper. This study would be useful in developing efficient PV technologies to meet the ever-growing energy needs. The findings of this investigation are reported from an experimentally validated numerical model that accurately captures the melting behavior of PCM and other thermal characteristics of the system.