Economic and environmental feasibility analysis of a photovoltaic thermal system with passive cooling techniques, nanofluid, and phase changing materials

The economic and environmental assessment of photovoltaic systems incorporating passive cooling techniques, nanofluids, and nanophase change materials for thermal storage has been poorly addressed in the literature. This study undertakes a detailed feasibility analysis based on data from experiments with seven photovoltaic modules. Initially, these systems are numerically modeled to assess their annual energy production, followed by an analysis of cumulative energy demand using the Ecoinvent 3 database. Data on the total input and output energy of the modules enables a detailed numerical economic evaluation, while environmental impacts are rigorously examined using SimaPro, applying the ReCiPe 2016 and IPCC 2013 methodologies. The findings reveal substantial annual total (electrical and thermal) energy production increase of 446.5 % to 592.2 % compared to a bare photovoltaic system, with corresponding cumulative energy demand raise of 4.97 % to 9.93 %. All systems exhibit cost-effectiveness, showing improvements of 1.75 % to 14.13 % in electricity costs, along with 4.19 % to 15.93 % in levelized cost of exergy. They recoup their initial energy investments within 70.21 % to 58.07 % of their respective lifetimes. While these modules contribute to minor environmental issues, including fine particulate matter formation (6.4 % increase), human nano-carcinogenic toxicity (7.02 % increase), and global warming impacts (10.83 % increase), human carcinogenic toxicity (18.84 % increase), CO₂ emissions ranging from 565.8 kg to 627.4 kg (mostly attributed to the battery, inverter, PV, and pumps), they also prevent 181 kg to 1,254 kg of CO₂ from emissions throughout their life cycles.