Increasing energy crises and carbon footprints are major challenges in today’s world, with the excessive use of conventional fuels leading to the current global situation. There is therefore an urgent need to direct the attention of policymakers and researchers toward the exploration and investigation of new and renewable energy resources. Among the possible options, solar energy is the most abundant renewable energy source available throughout the year.

Different types of solar energy collectors have been studied in the context of harvesting the maximum possible energy from the available sunlight, with photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) technology one of the most promising options in terms of higher energy per unit area. Hybrid solar collectors are of great importance because they can produce heat and electricity simultaneously. Most importantly, PV/T systems can viably integrate with any type of structure, and therefore represent a potential solution to supply clean energy to residential and industrial sectors. Various energy-efficient heat-sink designs and novel thermal fluids have been widely reported for thermal management of PV/T systems, particularly in the past decade. Through continuous development, existing research gaps in the development of PV/T technology can be removed to advance this technology further.

The aim of this Special issue is to invite research into the design of PV/T hybrid systems with nanofluids, heat pipes, passive cooling fins, phase change materials (PCMs), novel heat-sink designs, and other advanced thermal fluids. We also hope to attract research into generation, desalination, smart grids and grid integration, and the application of PV/T technology to residential, industrial, agricultural, and other potential sectors, with a particular interest in life-cycle assessments and global scale economic competitiveness. We welcome both original research and review articles.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Modeling of PV/T hybrid systems based on experimental data
• Forecasting efficient energy and heat production based on machine learning techniques, in particular artificial neural networks (ANN) applied to PV/T systems
• Key enabling nanoparticles and nanofluid technologies in PV/T Systems
• Optimal sizing and operations of PV/T systems for mining and heavy industries
• Bifacial PV power plants applications
• Degradation of PV materials
• PV integration and interfacing applications in medium and high voltage grids
• PV and PV/T integration with buildings
• PV and PV/T applications in the agricultural sector
• PV/T with built-in heat storage systems
• PV/T with heat pipe technology
• PV/T with phase change materials (PCMs) and nano-enhanced PCMs
• PV/T with passive cooling fins
• PV/T-Thermoelectric generator systems
• PV/T-porous foam systems