Passive cooling to mitigate climate-induced performance losses in photovoltaics

Accelerating climate change is intensifying thermal stress on solar photovoltaics, as their efficiency and yield are directly constrained by rising ambient temperatures and increasing exposure to extreme heat. Scalable and robust thermal management strategies are therefore essential to sustain power generation and enhance the climate resilience of solar energy systems under current and future warming. Here, we assess three hydrogel-based passive cooling configurations across 2,539 utility-scale photovoltaic sites in China to mitigate temperature-induced losses across diverse climatic zones. The Hydrogel Cooling with Water Supply system delivers the most substantial and geographically variable benefits, with average temperature reductions approaching 7.28 °C in hot arid-steppe regions. Across all stations, the mean equivalent capacity gain reaches 26.83 GW, with an associated mitigation potential of 32.80 Mt CO₂, while individual stations exhibit electricity yield increases of up to 7.26%. Economic assessment indicates this configuration achieves the shortest payback period of 3.16 years. Under projected future climate scenarios, passive cooling continues to regulate cell temperature despite changes in irradiance patterns. Together, these findings highlight cell temperature as a persistent constraint on photovoltaic performance and identify passive cooling as a long-term practical pathway to enhance photovoltaic resilience, supporting climate mitigation and adaptation in a warming world. The code for this manuscript has been archived on GitHub under the tag CodeReview-v1 Access to this tag will be provided for peer review, and full public release will follow acceptance of the manuscript. The data are provided for peer review purposes only via DataReview-v1,and will be made publicly available upon acceptance of the manuscript. The 2539 stations dataset is collected from "Feng, Q. L. et al. A 10-m national-scale map of ground-mounted photovoltaic power stations in China of 2020. Sci Data 11 (2024). https://doi.org:10.1038/s41597-024-02994-x"