Photovoltaic‐Integrated Phase‐Change Materials (PV‐PCMs) Systems: A Comprehensive Study on Heat Transfer, Energy Storage, and Material Selection

ABSTRACT Photovoltaic (PV) modules suffer efficiency losses at elevated operating temperatures, necessitating effective thermal management strategies. This study presents a numerical investigation of passive PV cooling using phase‐change materials (PCMs), nine PCMs with varying melting points are evaluated across seven inclination angles ranging from 0° to 90°, using transient computational fluid dynamics simulations in ANSYS Fluent under standard test conditions 1000 W/m 2 . The key method features include resolving coupled heat transfer, phase‐change dynamics, and electrical performance of the photovoltaic‐integrated phase‐change material (PV‐PCM) system. Results show that both thermophysical properties and system orientation affect PV thermal behavior. Lower‐melting‐point PCMs, particularly RT24, achieve the most significant temperature reduction at steep inclinations, lowering the cell temperature from 159°C at 0° to 77°C at 90°. In contrast, higher RT paraffins exhibit weaker convective enhancement due to increased viscosity in the molten phase. Lauric acid shows moderate sensitivity to inclination angle, maintaining relatively stable heat‐transfer behavior, while still benefiting from convection‐induced enhancement at higher inclination angles. Lithium nitrate trihydrate maintained consistently low temperatures (38°C–43.5°C) across all orientations due to its high latent heat and relatively high thermal conductivity. The presence of natural convection increases the total enthalpy for most PCMs, whereas horizontal configurations limit the bulk material's participation in phase change. These findings provide quantitative guidance for PCM selection based on installation constraints and establish that optimal PV‐PCM performance requires coordinated consideration of material properties and system orientation.