In this study, the thermal and electrical performance of hybrid photovoltaic-thermal solar panels having serpentine, parallel and leaf-shaped flow channel are compared. It is found that the PV/T panel with leaf-shaped structure exhibit smallest pressure drop among the three underlying identical inlet conditions, while the serpentine structure demonstrates the best overall thermal performance. The overall thermal performance can be enhanced through the design of leaf-shaped configuration by decreasing the channel width ratio, which also leads to the rise of pressure drop by 43%. It shows the channel configuration with 30 degree rotation performs the best thermal cooling with nearly identical pressure drop, compared to that of 20 and 25 degree of rotation. By reducing the depth of the channel, it is found that the leaf-shaped flow channel leads to higher thermal performance and pressure drop. The temperature of the PV panel with parallel flow channel decreases significantly with the reduction of flow channel depth. With identical depth of flow channel, the serpentine structure of PV panel reveals the highest overall thermal performance and the largest pumping power due to substantial pressure drop, while the leaf-shaped structure exhibits the best overall energy performance with respect to the pumping power and the efficiency of thermal-electric conversion.