Multi‐scale Optimization on Interfacial Evaporative Cooling for Photovoltaic Performance Enhancement

ABSTRACT Over 70% of incident sunlight is wasted as heat in silicon photovoltaics (PV), raising operating temperatures and degrading performance. This study proposes efficient interfacial evaporation‐based cooling technology and systematically optimizes it towards array‐scale applications. Research confirms the evaporator's water transport capacity far exceeds the thermal load (∼1200 W/m ² max). A thin‐film evaporator achieves superior cooling, reducing PV temperature by nearly 18 °C. A developed multiphysics model shows excellent agreement with experiments, accurately predicting PV temperature, electrical characteristics, and evaporation rate. Simulations reveal that a moisture boundary layer (MBL) forms on the PV backside; minimizing its thickness is key to enhancing cooling. Array‐level analysis demonstrates that simply increasing installation height in existing PV plants improves rear ventilation sufficiently. This approach achieves up to 22.3 °C temperature reduction and an 8.9% relative power efficiency gain without inducing electrical mismatch. The work provides both a theoretical foundation and practical pathways for efficient thermal management in PV.