Energy, economic, and environmental assessment of hybrid water-cooled photovoltaic systems with nanofluids and thermoelectric generators - Comparative and parametric analysis in contrasting climates

Although fossil fuels remain the world's primary energy source, their widespread use contributes to increased greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Solar energy is a sustainable option, but the efficiency of photovoltaic panels drastically decreases at high temperatures; hence, thermal management techniques are required. This work seeks to conduct a comparative parametric assessment of energy, economic, and environmental factors for six hybrid water based photovoltaic cooling systems, utilising performance data obtained from validated experimental and computational research. The aim is to assess the capacity of these unconventional thermal management strategies to augment electrical output, diminish carbon dioxide emissions, and enhance economic viability, including payback period, across varying climatic conditions, specifically for residential-scale photovoltaic systems. This work introduces a unified parametric model based on the consumption ratio, which is the ratio of a building's energy demand to the maximum photovoltaic output, in contrast to previous studies. This allows for a comparative evaluation of hybrid cooling configurations, including systems that are assisted by thermoelectric generators and nanofluids. The annual energy gains, cost savings, and carbon dioxide emission reductions for many hybrid cooling systems were measured using a theoretical parametric analysis. The model incorporates climate-specific data for Beirut and Nantes with the electrical and thermal behavior of photovoltaic panels. The best results were obtained by the photovoltaic thermal system, which combined water cooling, nanofluids, and thermoelectric generators. In Beirut, it achieved 10,772.51R kWh, 4,151.4R USD, and carbon dioxide reductions of 6,248R kg annually, while in Nantes, it achieved 7,451R kWh, 1,490.3R USD, and 4,321.8R kg. The water cooling with the thermoelectric generators system, on the other hand, produced the least amount of improvement. These results demonstrate how important sophisticated cooling methods are for improving photovoltaic efficiency and hastening the uptake of solar energy. • Climate-sensitive 3E parametric model for hybrid PV cooling. • Unified consumption ratio (R) enables scalable PV comparison. • PVT/NF/TEG achieves highest energy, savings, and CO 2 reduction. • Hybrid cooling boosts PV yield across Beirut and Nantes climates. • Short payback periods confirm techno-economic feasibility.