Investigations on solar Photovoltaic thermal water heating System with inorganic salt mixture Based phase change materials

Abstract

Solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energy sources for the present energy crisis. Solar water heaters and Solar Photovoltaic (PV) systems are the two key solar energy technologies accessible for many residential applications. Compared to the traditional solar thermal collector types, Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) collector is a hybrid technology used to produce both thermal and electrical energy simultaneously from a single system. Even though this technology was developed in past years; still there are some avenues of research for the performance enhancement of the system. A few technologies are developed and implemented to improve the overall performance of solar water heating systems worldwide. One such method is the use of energy storage materials in the solar PV/T water heating system for performance enhancement. There are different types of thermal energy storage materials integrated in the solar thermal systems. Among them, Phase Change Material (PCM) is identified as the high potential materials to store a large amount of heat in the available volume compared to the sensible heat storage materials. Literature review reveals that the use of inorganic salt hydrate mixtures is efficient and only limited researchers have investigated their influence on the thermal performance of solar water heating systems. The primary objective of the present research is to investigate the thermal and electrical performance of PCM integrated solar PV/T water heating system for domestic applications newline