Techno-economic and environmental assessment of a PV/T system using a wire-coil-enhanced thermal collector

Effective heat removal from photovoltaic cells to the working fluid remains still a techno-economic challenge in photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) systems, which directly affects both electrical and thermal performance. In this work, internal wire-coil inserts within the fluid tubes are investigated as a passive heat-transfer enhancement technique in a PV/T system. The presence of wire coils promotes flow mixing, decreases the thickness of the thermal boundary layer, and enhances heat transport. Beyond technical performance, this study also provides a comprehensive evaluation of the economic and environmental implications of such enhancement techniques. A numerical model of a multi-layer PV/T configuration equipped with a flat-plate collector was developed using ANSYS Fluent. Three configurations, i.e., a plain PV, a conventional PV/T, and a wire-coil-enhanced PV/T (PV/T + WC), were simulated under the climatic conditions of Karaj, Iran, based on ten-year average meteorological data. The results indicate that the integration of a thermal collector improves electrical efficiency by a relative 2.9 %, while the addition of wire coils further enhances it to 4.9 % compared to the plain PV module. It is also demonstrated that using wire coils increases the annual average thermal efficiency from 32 % to 35.7 %. Although reconstruction of a PV system to a PV/T counterpart may increase the electrical levelized cost of energy (LCOE) from 0.028 to 0.042 USD/kWh, the LCOE of overall energy (i.e., heat and electricity) of the PV/T and PV/T + WC systems is 0.0165 and 0.0155 USD/kWh, respectively, which is much lower than that of the standalone PV system. In addition, environmental assessment based on net CO 2 mitigation reveals that the incorporation of a thermal collector increases emission reduction by 118.4 %, while the addition of wire coils provides a further 7 % improvement. Overall, the findings demonstrate that integrating wire-coil inserts within PV/T collectors offers a cost-effective and practical approach for enhancing heat transfer, improving energy efficiency, and reducing environmental impact.