A simulation study on Phase Change Material (PCM) for Photovoltaic Thermal (PVT) application

• Main Author: Noordin Saleem, Siti Nur Dini
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/26109/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=121375

A comprehensive 3-dimensional model of photovoltaic thermal (PVT) system is executed to investigate the effects of PCM on the performance and efficiencies of the system. Phase Change Material (PCM) is integrated with the Solar Photovoltaic Thermal (PVT) acts as thermal storage to improve the performance of the system. Temperature rises have an undesirable effect on the reduction in the efficiency of a solar panel, resulting in a diminishment in the amount of energy produced by the solar PVT. Temperature is a significant factor to consider when evaluating the performance of the PVT system. Furthermore, Phase Change Material (PCM) is introduced in the Solar PVT model. Phase change materials contribute to the temperature adjustment function in several methods. The model is validated by comparison from published journals on the studies related to phase change material implemented in solar PVT. The validation is performed to determine the degree of accuracy of the model. Parametric analysis and temperature investigation are involved in improving the performance of the PVT-PCM system. The model of the PVT-PCM system is simulated transiently using Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation (CFD) Ansys 16.2 Software. Fluid flow is considered to be in a laminar, fully developed. uniform, and incompressible flow regime. As a result, the proposed PVT-PCM produced surface and outlet temperature at 49.10°C and 41.32°C, respectively. The system was validated with a difference from 0.66% to 4.7%, denoting high accuracy. The thermal, clectrical, and overall efficiency at an optimum mass flow rate of 10 kg/h obtained were 73.1%, 17.7%, and 90.8%, respectively. In addition, at optimum solar irradiance, the developed thermal, electrical, and overall efficiency were 73.082%, 17.741%, and 90.823%, respectively. This is due to the heat transfer process in PCM and the PVT system, which helps in the temperature reduction to optimize the performance of the PVT-PCM system. Overall, the research presented in this thesis has succeeded in making a contribution to understanding the optimum performance of PVT-PCM.