Electrical and thermal energy assessment of series connected N partially covered photovoltaic thermal (PVT)-compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) collector for different solar cell materials

•The comparative study for five different solar cell material has been analyzed.•Mass flow rate and number of collectors for N PVT-CPC collector have been optimized.•The performance of N-PVT-CPC collectors has been evaluated on annual basis. In the present communication, N-partially covered photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collector integrated with compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) connected in series has been considered to evaluate the annual electrical gain, overall thermal energy and exergy by considering five different solar cell materials. In the present paper, concentration ratio (CR) is considered as Aa:Ar is 2. Following cases have been named as [case (i)]: mono crystalline silicon (c-Si) based solar cells/PV module, [case (ii)]: poly crystalline silicon (p-Si) based solar cells/PV module, [case (iii)]: amorphous silicon (a-Si) based solar cells/PV module, [case (iv)]: cadmium telluride (CdTe) based solar cells/PV module and [case (v)]: copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) based solar cells/PV module. The electrical efficiency for considered all five cases of N PVT-CPC collector have been compared on hourly basis and further, monthly thermal and electrical gains have been obtained for ayear by numerical computation. The mass flow rate and number of collector of PVT-CPC collector have been optimized. Numerical computations have been carried out for all weather conditions at New Delhi, India. It has been observed that proposed case (i) has been found to be better than other other proposed cases from electrical, an overall thermal energy and exergy based on annual performance.