Numerical investigation of the PCM effect on the performance of photovoltaic panels; comparison between different types of PCM

Currently, the use of phase change materials (PCM) for the purpose of cooling photovoltaic modules has attracted a great deal of attention, since PV-PCM technology not only increases the efficiency of PV panels but also permits the extraction of thermal energy stored in the PCMs for use in cascading. In this paper, the effect of an RT58 type PCM with a heat sink on the cooling of the photovoltaic panel has been investigated, and a comparison has also been made between the effect of two other types of PCM, namely RT42 and C22-C48. To be more realistic, a UDF (user defined function) subroutine, written in C++, was developed to integrate the evolution of the ambient temperature and solar radiation of a summer day in the city of Oujda (eastern Morocco). These studies were performed by numerical simulations using ANSYS fluent software to solve the conservation equations, in order to optimize the temperature distribution and the liquid fraction of the system. The study showed that the integration of PCM decreases the temperature of PV cells to 21.2°K, 26.1°K, and 18.3°K for PCM types RT58, RT42, and C22-C40, respectively.