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Global energy demand for the future can be met using renewable energy resources, and one of its harvesting tools is the photovoltaic (PV) technology. The combination of solar cell technology and Trombe wall is one of the most important research topics at present. PV-Trombe walls are receiving great attention because of their applications for simultaneous electricity generation and heating. In this article, a review of available literature covers different designs of a PV-Trombe wall system besides its thermal and electrical applications. The review covers in detail the influence of design and operational parameters including the glass cover, use of direct current fan, facade width, air vent, air gap thickness, thermal insulation, packing factor, coverage, heat storage, air mass flow rate, PV cell cooling, southern windows, and tilt angle of solar cell on the performance of PV-Trombe walls. Furthermore, comparison between the PV-Trombe wall system and classical Trombe wall as well as the applicability of this novel system are revealed. This review article is beneficial to engineers and researchers and can provide information for future studies.

This paper aims to improve the performance of a bi-fluid PV/TW system by fixing a glass cover on the front of a solar cell and inserting a porous medium within the air duct. Moreover, the influence of the DC fan and water flow rate through the cooling circuit was investigated. For this purpose, two experimental models of the bi-fluid PV/TW system were built up and tested under various operating conditions. The acquired results revealed that the room and solar cell temperatures were higher for the glazed configuration of the bi-fluid PV/TW system compared to the unglazed configuration. This is a favorable outcome for building conditioning in cold weather; however, it is an undesired consequence in terms of electricity generation. In addition, the presence of the glass cover leads to an increase in thermal efficiency and decreases electrical efficiency due to an increase in the temperature of the solar cell. It is also realized that an increase in water flow rate and using DC fan lead to increase thermal and electrical efficiencies. The maximum values of thermal and electrical efficiencies were 76.76% and 13.69% for the glazed and unglazed models, respectively, with porous medium and DC fan at 300 liters/day of cooling water discharge. While the maximum value of total efficiency was 87.44% for the glazed model, with porous medium and DC fan at 300 liters/day of cooling water discharge.

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