Experimental investigation of water based photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system with and without phase change material (PCM)

•Performance of water and PCM based photovoltaic/thermal systems investigated experimentally.•Electrical efficiency of water and PCM based photovoltaic/thermal systems enhanced considerably.•Thermal efficiency of water and PCM based photovoltaic/thermal systems investigated experimentally.•PCM based photovoltaic/thermal system is better as compare to PV/T system without PCM. Electrical efficiency of photovoltaic panel depends upon material of photovoltaic panel and its operating temperature. Electricity generation of photovoltaic cell drops with rise in temperature so cooling is required to increase its performance. Photovoltaic/thermal system (PV/T) is a technology in which solar thermal system embeds behind PV panel which extracts heat of photovoltaic panel and keeps PV panel cool. This article presented experimental investigation of different PV systems under environmental conditions to improve performance of PV panel. Three different systems are used, which consisted of convectional PV panel, water based photovoltaic/thermal system (PV/T) with double absorber plate and water based photovoltaic/thermal system with phase change material (PCM). In water based PV/T system, double absorber plate is used in which top absorber plate is attached to PV panel and second absorber plate is attached to copper pipes having same shape of profile as that of piping arrangement. In water based PV/T-PCM, paraffin wax RT-30 is used as phase change material. Experiment was performed at three different mass flow rates i.e. 0.013kg/sec, 0.023kg/sec, 0.031kg/sec and its effect on electrical and thermal efficiency has been investigated. It has been observed from analysis that photovoltaic/thermal technology could become a significant solution to provide higher electrical and thermal efficient systems.