Effect of the thermophysical properties of a phase change material on the electrical output of a concentrated photovoltaic system

In this work, we developed a coupled thermal-optical-electrical model for a concentrator photovoltaic system integrated with a phase change material. We investigated the effect of the thermophysical properties of a PCM and ambient temperature on the electrical output. We found that the increase in ambient temperature from 25 °C to 50 °C decreases the electrical output up to 10%. The increase in thermal conductivity of the PCM beyond 12 Wm^-1K^-1 had a negligible effect in low ambient temperature conditions. The selection of the optimum thermophysical properties of a PCM can yield up to 13% gain in the electrical output.