Performance comparative study of a concentrating photovoltaic/thermal phase change system with different heatsinks

In this study, a compound parabolic concentrating photovoltaic/thermal phase change system with different heatsinks (S-type and H-type) are constructed in an open-air environment to experimentally analyze the influ-ence on photothermal, photovoltaic and heat-electricity cogeneration performance. The non-uniform irradiance distribution at different moments is simulated with the Monte Carlo rays tracing method, and it is demonstrated to be the main cause of non-uniform temperature distribution on photovoltaic module surface. The H-type heatsink system integrating phase change material (PCM) owns better temperature regulation performance, as its photovoltaic modules temperature and non-uniformity factor are about 0.8 celcius and 0.05 lower than those of S-type respectively when PCM begins to melt. The instantaneous electrical and thermal efficiency with H-type heatsink are 0.6% higher and 10.0% lower than those with S-type, respectively. Considering that the pump power consumption of S-type heatsink is over 3 times of H-type, the instantaneous priamry energy-saving effi-ciency of S-type system is 8.0% higher. Simultaneously, the maximum primary energy-saving efficiency of concentrating photovoltaic/thermal phase change system with H-type/S-type heatsink is about 7.9%/14.6% and 10.7%/17.4% higher than that of concentrating photovoltaic and solar collector system respectively, showing great potential of photovoltaic/thermal phase change system in heat-electricity cogeneration performance especially utilizing S-type heatsink. Results present advantages of the system utilizing S-type heatsink and help promote the application of heatsinks in photovoltaic/thermal phase change system.