Performance evaluation of concentrating solar photovoltaic and photovoltaic/thermal systems

•Experimental study of concentrating PV and PVT systems is performed.•The electrical performance of concentrating PV and PVT systems is evaluated.•The thermal performance of the PVT system is evaluated for two mass flow rates.•Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to model the PVT system.•The CFD model of the concentrating PVT system is validated with the experiments.

Hybrid conversion of solar radiation, which allows simultaneous conversion of sunlight into thermal and electrical energy in the photovoltaic/thermal collector, is one of the most promising techniques of solar energy exploitation. In this study, low concentrating photovoltaic (PV) and photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) systems were designed and tested for a given spring climatic condition of the Tunisian Saharan city Tozeur. The system is basically an asymmetric compound parabolic photovoltaic concentrator. As this system’s performance deteriorates with rising the solar cells temperature, we proposed to convert it on a hybrid one in order to improve its electrical efficiency and to recuperate simultaneously thermal energy. The comparison of these systems operating confirmed the improvement of the electrical performance of the combined PVT system and its acceptable thermal energy production. A computational fluid dynamics “CFD” model which interprets the PVT system was then developed and validated against the experimental results, proving the validity of the developed model use to identify numerically this system limitations and predict the possible improvements.