Performance analysis of macroscale Concentrated Photovoltaic Thermal receivers

Effective heat dissipation is a key factor governing the conversion efficiency of high-concentration photovoltaic cells. This study compares several macroscale receiver geometries for concentrated photovoltaic–thermal systems—circular, square, rectangular, and Quarter cut pipes—with and without finned heat sinks. A three-dimensional conservative transient conjugate heat transfer model, incorporating radiative effects, was developed in OpenFOAM to simulate the coupled fluid–solid thermal behavior. The model was validated using reported experimental data, showing excellent agreement with a maximum temperature deviation below 1.4 °C. The numerical results indicate that the Quarter cut tube with a 7-fin heat sink achieves the best performance, reaching 70.7% thermal efficiency, 4% electrical efficiency, and an overall efficiency of 74.7% at a high flow rate. The system exhibits a fast thermal response of 4.9 s at high flow rates and 20.7 s at low flow rates, confirming its low thermal inertia. The novelty of this work lies in the application of a conservative 3D modeling framework to macroscale receivers, enabling quantitative evaluation and comparison of alternative designs using a consistent numerical approach, and identifying the 7-fin Quarter cut receiver, usually regarded as inferior to the rectangular pipe, as the most efficient configuration. • A 3D conservative transient model with heat transfer and radiation was developed. • Proposed 7-fin Quarter cut heat sink with 74.7% total efficiency. • The proposed design exhibits greater performance than rectangular ducts. • It compares favorably with novel Concentrated Photovoltaic thermal systems.