Thermal management of photovoltaic panel with nano-enhanced phase change material at different inclinations

Photovoltaic (PV) panel, coupled with phase change material (PCM), has attracted broad attention for the panel's thermal management. Despite the higher energy storage capability of PCMs, the main disadvantage is their low thermal conductivity which is compensated to an extent with the nano-enhanced PCMs (NEPCMs). In this study, numerical simulations are carried out to compare the heat transfer phenomena and thermal response of PV-NEPCM with simple PV-PCM for various tilt angles. CuO nanoparticles with mass concentrations of 1%, 3% and 5% are selected for NEPCM. The thermal performance of PV-NEPCM at inclinations of 0°, 15°, 30° and 45 [Formula: see text] is compared with a simple PV-PCM system to know the effect of mass concentration of nanoparticles and inclination. The average temperature of PV, liquid fraction and thermal energy stored in PCM, the pattern of isotherms and streamlines and performance of PV are compared for PV-PCM and PV-NEPCM systems. Results show that the loading of nanoparticles increases the heat transfer rate to PCM in all the configurations. It has also been shown that at lower inclinations, the use of NEPCM is more effective due to the presence of conduction heat transfer. At higher tilt angles, heat transfer from the PV module takes place by natural convection. By using NEPCM, the maximum decrease in PV temperature of 1.26 [Formula: see text] and maximum improvement in the liquid fraction of 8.25% are achieved when [Formula: see text] with 5% mass concentration of nanoparticles compared to simple PCM. Enhancement of thermal energy stored in PCM increases upon adding nanoparticles, and the highest improvement is obtained for [Formula: see text] Maximum enhancement of efficiency of PV module is found to be 1.75% for [Formula: see text] inclination on adding nanoparticles of 5% mass concentration.