Experimental Investigations Conducted for the Characteristic Study of OM29 Phase Change Material and Its Incorporation in Photovoltaic Panel

Abstract

The solar photovoltaic (PV) system is emerging energetically in meeting the present energy demands. A rise in PV module temperature reduces the electrical efficiency, which fails to meet the expected energy demand. The main objective of this research was to study the nature of OM29, which is an organic phase change material (PCM) used for PV module cooling during the summer season. A heat transfer network was developed to minimize the experimental difficulties and represent the working model as an electrical resistance circuit. Most existing PV module temperature (TPV) reduction technology fails to achieve the effective heat transfer from the PV module to PCM because there is an intermediate layer between the PV module and PCM. In this proposed method, liquid PCM is filled directly on the back surface of the PV module to overcome the conduction barrier and PCM attains the thermal energy directly from the PV module. Further, the rear side of the PCM is enclosed by tin combined with aluminium to avoid any leakages during phase change. Experimental results show that the PV module temperature decreased by a maximum of 1.2 °C using OM29 until 08:30. However, after 09:00, the OM29 PCM was unable to lower the TPV because OM29 is not capable of maintaining the latent heat property for a longer time and total amount of the PCM experimented in this study was not sufficient to store the PV module generated thermal energy for an entire day. The inability of the presented PCM to lower the temperature of the PV panel was attributed to the lower melting point of OM29. PCM back sheet was incapable of dissipating the stored PCM’s thermal energy to the ambient, and this makes the experimented PCM unsuitable for the selected location during summer.