Modeling and experimental research of hybrid PV-thermoelectric system for high concentrated solar energy conversion

Modeling and Experimentation of New Thermoelectric Cooler–Thermoelectric Generator Module

“…Due to the necessity of cooling in several fields such as electronics [1][2][3][4], automotive [5], and photovoltaic [6,7], thermoelectric coolers (TEC) have become widespread in the last decades. Thermoelectric coolers contain a number (N) of n-p thermoelectric doped couples made of semiconductor material inserted between two thermally conducting and electrically insulating ceramic plates [7].…”

“…Thermoelectric coolers contain a number (N) of n-p thermoelectric doped couples made of semiconductor material inserted between two thermally conducting and electrically insulating ceramic plates [7]. The conversion efficiency of thermoelectric materials is governed by a dimensionless factor called the figure of merit (ZT), which is defined as ZT " pSσ{kqT, where S, σ, T and k are Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, operating temperature and the thermal conductivity of the material, respectively [8].…”

“…This phenomenon is called the Peltier effect [9]. The cooling efficiency of the thermoelectric coolers is also known as the coefficient of performance (COP) and governed by Equation (1) with (T ave = (T cold + T hot )/2) as follows [8]: Oppositely to Peltier effect, the thermoelectric generator (TEG) produces electric energy by means of Seebeck effect, via applying temperature gradient (ΔT) on the cold (Tcold) and hot side (Thot) of the module [6,7,10]. Figure 1B describes the working principle of TEG.…”

“…TEC is used for cooling by transferring the heat from its cold side to the hot side by means of Seebeck effect; TEG plays the role of a remedy device by converting the waste heat of the hot side of TEC into electrical energy by means of Peltier effect. The combination of thermoelectric coolers and thermoelectric generators is novel and such module has been used in the photovoltaic application under different sun concentration ratio in a previous study [7]. Modeling and finite element method is used to examine the cooling behavior and the electrical power Oppositely to Peltier effect, the thermoelectric generator (TEG) produces electric energy by means of Seebeck effect, via applying temperature gradient (∆T) on the cold (T cold ) and hot side (T hot ) of the module [6,7,10].…”

“…Figure 1B describes the working principle of TEG. Similar to TEC, TEG is a compact device with a noiseless simple design that has no moving organs [11]; it has been used generally in the industry as waste heat remedy [9], in vehicles [5][6][7][8][9][10], buildings (houses, restaurants, etc. ), and concentrated photovoltaic systems [12][13][14].…”