Evaluation of thermal management of photovoltaic solar cell via hybrid cooling system of phase change material inclusion hybrid nanoparticles coupled with flat heat pipe

An evaluation of photovoltaic solar cell (PV) thermal regulation via a hybrid cooling system of flat heat pipes (HP) coupled with phase change material (PCM) without and with the inclusion of hybrid nanoparticles is investigated. The evaluation is based on energetic, exergetic, economic, and environmental (4E) approaches. A complete transient mathematical model is constructed and numerically solved using Runge-Kutta homemade program via MATLAB software. Two PCM (SP31 and SP15-gel) are used to investigate the performance of the hybrid cooling system in summer and winter, respectively. The data are based on the climate conditions of upper Egypt. Results show that the HP-PCM cooling system achieves higher performance than natural solar panel cooling and boosts using hybrid nanoparticles. Furthermore, the photovoltaic solar cell exergy efficiency is higher than that of PCM. The cell's operating temperature was maximally reduced by 20.9 °C and 18.3 °C, while the solar panel efficiency improved by 11.5 % and 9 % using SP31 and SP15-gel, respectively, compared with the conventional solar cell. The proposed cooling system with hybrid nanoparticles maximally achieves a daily energy efficiency of 56.45 % and 54.45 %, compared with 8.77 % and 7.84 % for the conventional solar cell system using SP31 and SP15-gel, respectively. SP31/hybrid-nano achieved average exergy efficiency of 13.23 %, while the maximum value accounted for SP15-gel/hybrid-nano at 14.98 %. The hybrid cooling system production cost is 0.0899 $/kWh, while the conventional system is 0.105 $/kWh. A hybrid cooling system based on CO2 mitigation rates is highly effective compared to the conventional one. •4E assessment of thermal regulation of PV panel using HP-PCM is studied.•SP31 of 3 cm and SP15-gel of 2.5 cm are the best PCM thickness for PV performance.•Maximum PV temperature reduction of 20.9 °C is achieved PCM-HP with nanoparticles.•PV efficiency is improved by 11.5 % in summer and 9 % in winter using hybrid nano.•HP-PCM with nano regulates efficiently PV operation at lower cost and CO2 emission.