Research demonstrates the high operating temperature of crystalline silicon based photovoltaic (PV) module will lead to an obvious decrease in conversion efficiency and lifetime. In this study, the phase change material (PCM) is employed and attached at the back of PV module, which is called PV-PCM system, to absorb excess heat from PV module for PV thermal regulation and electrical efficiency improvement. Besides, the PV-PCM-T system, i.e. integrated with a solar thermal (ST) collector to further utilize the heat stored in PCM, is also investigated for comparison. To evaluate the system's operating performance in practical application, a novel PV-PCM module and PV-PCM-T module are designed, fabricated and tested under real outdoor conditions. The PV temperature, PCM temperature, water temperature, electricity output data are collected and analyzed. Results show that PV temperature difference between PV-only and PV-PCM system could reach to 23 degrees C, thus the electricity output of PV-PCM system increases by 5.18%. Moreover, the total energy output of the PV-PCM-T system is evaluated through introducing three indicators, i.e. energetic sum, exergetic sum and electrical sum, which are calculated as 3,088, 1920 and 2312 kJ/day, increase by 74.3%, 8.32% and 30.4% respectively. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.