Modelling of the thermal behaviour of solar high concentrating photovoltaic receiver

•A complex numerical modelling technique has been established to accurately predict the cell temperature and thermal load on a High Concentration Multi-Junction Photovoltaic Cell.•It has been established that a heat transfer coefficient of at least 2.4 kW/m2K is required to keep a multi-junction cell below a safe operating temperature of 80 °C, for a concentration ratio of 1000x.•The optimum mesh selection is performed for accuracy model simulation.