A Photovoltaic panel coupled with a phase changing material heat storage system in hot climates

Nowadays, there is a great impulse in the field of photovoltaic cell systems (PV) to develop new devices with better energy conversion performances and higher cost effectiveness. This paper is focused on the design and development of a modified PV system, consisting of a normal PV panel coupled with a Phase Change Material (PCM). PCMs are "latent" energy storage materials, using chemical bonds to store and release heat. The system is based on the idea that decreasing the operating temperature of the panel causes an increase in its energy conversion efficiency. A theoretical analysis of the system was accomplished by using COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS, a partial differential equations (PDEs) solver. By using this software, the thermal behaviour of the PV-PCM system was simulated, thus allowing a better identification of the suitable thermo-physical parameters for the optimization of the panel efficiency. The numerical simulations accomplished showed that a PCM with a melting temperature between 28°C and 32°C in a typical summer day in Sicily induces a significant variation in the energy conversion efficiency. The experimental set-up realized to validate these results is also described in the paper, but the experimental tests have still not been run. Furthermore, the exploitation of this simple technology could permit to reduce CO2 emissions because the increasing of the energy conversion efficiency means more energy production and consequently less emission of greenhouse gases to produce energy by fossil fuel or normal PV panel.