Experimental study of active phase change cooling technique based on porous media for photovoltaic thermal management and efficiency enhancement

The photoelectric conversion efficiency of solar cells was significantly influenced by its operating temperature which promotes the studies in thermal management for photovoltaic (PV). This paper introduced a novel cooling method based on porous media applied in PV panel for thermal management and efficiency enhancement. An active phase change (APC) cooling system has been designed and fabricated to explore the possibility of cooling the PV panel, and ethanol was considered as the working fluid. By laboratory test, average temperature, temperature distribution, electrical performance of the PV panel as well as energy and exergy efficiency were analyzed in detail. The results demonstrated that the average temperature of the PV panel can be better managed by the APC cooling method compared with the uncooled conditions at different irradiation levels. Besides, increasing the non-condensable gas flow rates has a positive effect on the temperature reduction and maximum generated power of the PV panel. The obtained three-dimensional temperature distribution map proved that the temperature distribution was well uniform with the maximum temperature difference less than 5 degrees C. The maximum specific power improvement and percentage improvement in power generation were 21.37 W/m(2) and 19.32%, respectively.