Research Article Thermal and Electrical Performance of Uncooled, Nature-Cooled, and Photovoltaic Thermal Module Pushpendu Dwivedi , 1 Sujay Ashwinraj Ganesh , 2,3 Kumarasamy Sudhakar , 1,2,4 Archana Soni , 1 and S. Shanmuga Priya 5 1 Energy Centre, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, 462003, M.P, India 2 Faculty of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering Technology, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26600 Pekan, Malaysia 3 Centre for Automotive Engineering (Automotive Centre), Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26600, Pekan, Pahang, Malaysia 4 Centre for Research in Advanced Fluid & Processes (Fluid Centre), Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26300, Paya Besar, Pahang, Malaysia 5 Department of Chemical Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka 576104, India Correspondence should be addressed to Kumarasamy Sudhakar; sudhakar@ump.edu.my and S. Shanmuga Priya; shan.priya@manipal.edu Received 21 March 2022; Revised 19 October 2022; Accepted 24 November 2022; Published 3 February 2023 Academic Editor: Qiliang Wang Copyright © 2023 Pushpendu Dwivedi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The experimental study is aimed at analyzing photovoltaic module’s thermal and electrical performance (PV) with back surface cooling under Malaysian tropical climate conditions. The performance of a passively cooled PV module integrated with biomaterial (moist coconut fiber) was compared with a photovoltaic thermal (PVT) system with water circulation at the rate of 0.02 kg s -1 and a reference PV module. The study observed that the passively cooled PV module succeeded in reducing the module surface temperature by more than 20%. However, the PVT system reduced the temperature only by less than 17%. The electrical energy efficiency was improved remarkably in the passively cooled PV module by almost 11%, but the PVT system managed to increase the electrical efficiency by 9%, approximately. It can be concluded that nature-inspired coconut fiber- based cooling can be one of the potential alternatives to active cooling methods. 1. Introduction For decades, fossil fuels have been used to meet humans’ energy demands, primarily through electricity production. The role of crude oil and natural gases has become more questionable for decades as they come with the price. Energy production through fossil fuels has caused as much detri- mental impact on the environment as harvesting them. As mentioned by Alobaid et al. [1], heavy carbon emissions and accelerated global warming have resulted from extensive fossil fuel usage. Not only are they a nonrenewable energy source, but also fossil fuels are unreliable and potentially put our environment at stake. Solar energy is one of the many forms of renewable energy mentioned by Owusu and Asumadu-Sarkodie [2] which is being used as an alternative to produce carbon-free energy and mitigate negative climate change. As noted by Kirpichnikova et al. [3], solar energy is a very sustainable and reliable source of energy as it is eter- nally available at the same time, eco-friendly. Incorporating solar energy by installing solar panels either in the house- hold or to meet industrial needs has proven effective and encouraging. About 5 to 20% of sunlight is in contact with the PV module, generating electrical energy. In contrast, the remainder of the sunlight is either radiated back to the atmosphere or absorbed into the panel through conduction as heat [4]. Consequently, the heat will cause a dramatic increase in the surface temperature of the PV module. As Hindawi International Journal of Photoenergy Volume 2023, Article ID 4720545, 12 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/4720545