The performance of photovoltaic (PV) panels declines potentially during peak solar irradiance due to elevated operating temperatures. While active cooling can mitigate this loss, conventional methods present a critical trade-off: forced air-cooling is simple but often insufficient, while continuous water cooling is effective but prohibitively wasteful. Consequently, this study proposes a hybrid pulsed mist cooling system that synergistically combines forced air with intermittent water spray. The system operates primarily on forced air, activating a mist spray only when necessary, during peak temperature periods. The performance of a PV panel integrated with this system was evaluated under controlled indoor conditions. The results demonstrate that the hybrid mist cooling drastically outperforms air-cooling alone, reducing the average panel temperature by 29 degrees C and increasing the open-circuit voltage by over 2 V. Crucially, a pulsed operation (10-min activation per hour) replicated the performance of continuous cooling while reducing water consumption by approximate to 83 %. Numerical modelling identified an optimal balance between air and water flow rates, revealing that air flow is the primary performance driver, with mist acting as an efficient force multiplier. The optimized system yielded a net power increase of 6.13 Wand an absolute efficiency gain of 2.49 % for a 50 W panel. This work demonstrates that pulsed mist cooling effectively bridges the gap between simple air-cooling and resource-intensive water cooling, offering a sustainable and water-conscious strategy for enhancing solar energy reliability in arid regions.