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Effect of Finned Arched Enclosure Geometry on the Thermal Performance of Phase Change Material-Cooled Photovoltaic Panels
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DOI：10.1002/est2.70438.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
To control the operating temperature of photovoltaic (PV) cells and enhance their conversion efficiency, Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are employed as an effective cooling medium attached to the rear surface of the panel. The current study assesses the performance of a passive cooling system based on PCM-paraffin inside a copper-finned enclosure. In addition, this work addressed the influence of container geometry design (arched vs. flat) on the thermal and electrical functional performance. The simulation outcomes corroborated a considerable enhancement with PCM cooling. The operating temperature of the PV cell decreased to 359 K in the arched enclosure, a reduction of 7 K compared to the flat enclosure 366 K, and was significantly lower than the reference PV cell 387 K. Therefore, this reduction in the PV temperature directly enhanced the performance of the PV panel. The arched enclosure achieved a maximum efficiency enhancement of 11.8%, whereas the flat design presented a 9.38% raise. In the context of PCM behavior, the arched design prolonged the solid state by 35.8% and reduced the melting rate by 21% compared to the flat one. This is attributed to the augmentation in the contact surface area that increased viscous effects and restricted convective currents. However, the arched enclosure demonstrated a greater capacity for thermal energy storage. The increase of surface area in arched design led to faster heat loss and, consequently, less thermal inertia at night compared to the flat design, resulting in a fast solidifies of paraffin faster in the arched geometry during the cooling phase at sunset. Our simulation results confirm that the enclosure geometry enhances the performance of the PV system and validates effective passive cooling techniques.
Keywords:
arched enclosure
passive cooling
phase change materials (PCMs)
photovoltaic (PV) cell
thermal regulation
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