Experimental work of low-concentrated solar cell cooled by different configurations of heat spreader/phase change material/metal foam: energy, exergy, environmental, and economic assessment.

Abstract

The increase in the cell temperature results in a decrease in both solar cell power and efficiency. The conversion efficiency of the panels decreases by 0.08% for every 1°C rise in its temperature. Therefore, this study experimentally investigates the effect of using a new composite passive cooling system of heat spreader (HS) of different configurations: dimple (DHS), flat plate (FHS), and trapezoidal (THS), with phase change materials (PCM) including and non-including metal foam (MF) for the thermal regulation of low concentrated solar cell (CPV) modules. The system's performance is evaluated based on energy, exergy, economic, and environmental approaches under constant solar irradiance levels of 2800 W/m². The findings reveal that utilizing PCM 26 with and without MF maximally reduces the cell temperature of the DHS cooling system by 55.6°C and 53.4°C, respectively, compared with natural PV cooling. The maximum electrical efficiency accounts for the DHS/MF-PCM 26 cooling system with 12.6%, while DHS/MF-PCM 29 archives a cell efficiency of 12.44%. PV-DHS/MF-PCM 29 system achieves the highest PCM and overall system exergy efficiencies of 5.43% and 18.76%, respectively. However, the PV-THS/MF-PCM 26 system achieves the minimum cost with a cost saving of 47.58% compared with the reference cell, while PV-DHS/MF-PCM 26 and PV-THS/MF-PCM 26 save 45.43% and 44.76%, respectively. The PV-DHS/MF-PCM 26 configuration is the most environmentally friendly option, with a carbon credit gain of 10.81$, compared with 10.58$ for MF-PCM 29. The results of the current study are compared with similar results from previous studies.