Hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) and solar air heater (SAH) systems offer a promising approach to improving solar energy utilization by simultaneously generating electricity and thermal outputs. This study investigates a novel PVT-SAH configuration enhanced with a hybrid nano-phase change material (HNPCM) and minichannel cooling to improve thermal regulation and overall system performance experimentally. A composite PCM was formulated by blending paraffin waxes with different solidification points, further enhanced with CuO nanoparticles via mechanical and ultrasonic dispersion techniques. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to analyze system performance; however, due to its high computational costs, a support vector machine (SVM) model was trained to predict thermal efficiency, pumping power, and PCM melting fraction. The SVM model demonstrated strong agreement with CFD simulations, with mean deviations of 0.15 % (training) and 3.7 % (testing) for thermal efficiency, while deviations remained ≤6.1 % and ≤7.1 % for pumping power and PCM liquid fraction, respectively. This demonstrates its effectiveness as a fast, reliable surrogate for CFD-based hybrid PVT-SA system analysis. Single-objective optimization achieved notable gains, with a 72 % efficiency boost and 90 % reductions in pumping power and PCM liquid fraction. Multi-objective optimization further revealed a 4 °C reduction in PV temperature under the multi-optimal configuration, corresponding to a 25 % rise in thermal efficiency, and respective decreases of 26 % and 94 % in pumping power and PCM liquid fraction.

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