Vaselinum Album Usage as Phase Change Material to Increase Electric Efficiency of Solar Panel

• Main Author: Swandiko Prillianto, Satrio
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/40587
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Fossil fuels are the primary energy source used in the world. Fossil fuels are limited in number and when it is exploited continuously, it will run out. Renewable energy sources, such as solar energy, are one of the alternatives energy for replacing fossil fuels. A commonly used technology to convert solar energy into electricity is photovoltaic (PV). One of the problems that appears in the use of PV is their efficiency will drop along with the rise of temperature. In this research, white vaseline (vaselinum album) is used as phase change material to prevent the temperature from rising so that the efficiency of PV using PCM is higher than usual PV. In this research, the performance of the PV using PCM will be compared with the performance of the usual PV. Based on the experiment result, the PCM can prevent temperature rising of the PV with maximum average temperature difference in the lower side of PV is 4.62oC and in the upper side is 2.56oC. Lower PV temperature causes the increasing of power and efficiency. The maximum average of PV power rising is 19.24% and the maximum average of efficiency rising is 1.18%.