Evaluation of a nanofluid-based concentrating photovoltaic thermal system integrated with finned PCM heatsink: An experimental study

Concentrating photovoltaic is an efficient system to implement instead of single photovoltaic modules. Nevertheless, the PV performance and life span would decrease by increasing the cell temperature. This article aims to implement PV cooling methods with a novel hybrid configuration. Accordingly, five cooling methods including concentrating photovoltaic thermal (CPV-T) with water circulation, CPV-T with nanofluid circulation, CPV-T with PCM and nanofluid circulation, CPV-T with nanofluid circulation and finned-PCM, and CPV-T with water circulation and finned-PCM have been analyzed experimentally in a warm climate. After analyzing and comparing the outcomes, it was found that the CPV-T with nanofluid circulation and finned-PCM (CPV-T/NF/FPCM) technique had the most efficient cooling performance. It enhanced the daily average electrical and thermal efficiency of the CPV system, which improved to 17.02% and 61.25%, respectively. Also, the average PV module temperature decreased by about 26.6 °C compared to the CPV units’ temperature. Furthermore, the average system output power reached 20.18W, while the output power for the single CPV achieved a difference of about 4 W compared to the CPV-T/NF/FPCM unit. This study obtained the maximum cooling achievable in actual conditions and technical gaps coverage for a CPV system using commercially available PCM, metal fins, and nanofluids simultaneously.