Numerical study of concentrated photovoltaic system indirect cooling using water and phase change material

In the present theoretical study, an indirect cooling of a concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) system with phase change material (PCM) is carried out by using a new integration. The integration is based on using a heat transfer medium/fluid to transfer the dissipated heat from the CPV system to the PCM. The new system allows separating the PCM away from CPV which reduces the consumed power for the tracking system and avoids increasing the overall thermal resistance of the CPV-PCM direct integrated system. The study is carried out using PCM plates in parallel configuration and water at different flow velocities as heat transfer medium. A complete mathematical model including the heat transfer through the PV, heat transfer medium, and PCM plates is presented and solved by using ANSYS-FLUENT software. The results indicated that this indirect technique in cooling the CPV system by using the heat transfer medium and PCM is more performant compared to conventional heat sink PCM. Additionally, the CPV cell temperature decreases with increasing the flow velocity of the heat transfer medium. The temperature of the cell does not exceed 78°C and PCM maximum temperature is kept below the limit of degradation temperature.