Thermal management in hybrid Photovoltaic/Thermal (PVT) collectors is essential to derive electrical and thermal energy from a single system. Effective removal of heat gained by the photovoltaic module during its operation is possible with a proper thermal absorber design. Hence, thermal absorber design has gained prominence, and various design techniques were attempted in the literature to enhance energy delivery among different stakeholders. Most research groups tried to design absorber configurations attached to the PV panel's front or rear side. Absorber design configurations include various channel materials and geometry as well as other physical parameter combinations. The quantitative thermal energy delivery from the system could vary based on the absorber configuration and be useful for different applications. This study reports a detailed review to understand the relation between thermal absorber design configurations and the potential energy recovery from PVT systems. This study helps the designers identify channel designs, materials, and adequate working fluids for enhanced heat transfer to anticipate better thermal management of PVT systems. Challenges and suggestions to develop state of the art thermal absorber designs for relative commercial thermal applications using PVT systems are conveyed.

The undesired heat evolved in photovoltaic (PV) module during its regular operation must be removed to aspire reliable power output. PV installations in tropical and sub-tropical regions experience abrupt PV module heating especially during summer seasons that lead to hot spot effect. Photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) system has proven to provide module cooling satisfactorily with various working fluids while delivering higher annual energy yield. In the present study, experiments were carried out on novel web flow channel photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) module at Vellore location, (12.9165° N, 79.1325° E) India. The present research was carried out at outdoor conditions with various mass flow rates range of 0.5- 2 litre per minute under sunny and overcast conditions. Water was used as working fluid in the PVT system and performance results were compared to 335 Wp reference poly crystalline PV module under similar operating conditions. PVT with bi-symmetrical web flow thermal absorber gave maximum overall efficiency of 63.09% obtained at 1.5 LPM mass flow rate of the water. Estimation of CO2 mitigations for PVT system earned 8.2% higher savings than the PV module alone under overcast conditions.

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