Integrated Model for Comprehensive Performance Investigation of Solar Concentrated Photovoltaic‐Thermal System Embedded with Microchannel Heat Sinks

Abstract

Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) is a well‐established renewable energy technology. A significant challenge in CPV systems is their low efficiency, majorly due to localized heating yielded from concentration, often requiring the use of cooling systems. The accurate performance analysis and cooling system design for CPV systems require a multiphysics model. Herein, an integrated optical–thermal–electrical model is proposed for the performance evaluation of CPV systems incorporated with different configurations of microchannel heat sinks. The heat sink configuration includes 116 parallel and counter microchannels (Configuration A and B), a single wide microchannel (Configuration C), and single wide minichannel (Configuration D) heat sinks. This study involves 3D Monte‐Carlo ray tracing, finite volume method, and cell‐based electrical modeling. The results indicate that the flux profile over the absorber is highly nonuniform in nature. Furthermore, the CPV system with a Configuration C heat sink achieves a better uniformity in temperature, providing an optimized thermal performance of 64.63%. Moreover, the integrated model considers the impact of PV cell current mismatch that becomes prominent at increasing incidence angles. A maximum deviation of 6.9% in electrical power is obtained while comparing predicted numerical results against experimental results available in literature.