Abstract
Geometrical optimisation is a valuable way to improve the efficiency of a thermoelectric element (TE). In a hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric (PV-TE) system, the photovoltaic (PV) and thermoelectric (TE) components have a relatively complex relationship; their individual effects mean that geometrical optimisation of the TE element alone may not be sufficient to optimize the entire PV–TE hybrid system. In this paper, we introduce a parametric optimisation of the geometry of the thermoelectric element footprint for a PV–TE system. A uni-couple TE model was built for the PV–TE using the finite element method and temperature-dependent thermoelectric material properties. Two types of PV cells were investigated in this paper and the performance of PV–TE with different lengths of TE elements and different footprint areas was analysed. The outcome showed that no matter the TE element's length and the footprint areas, the maximum power output occurs when An/Ap = 1. This finding is useful, as it provides a reference whenever PV–TE optimisation is investigated.
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Abbreviations
- A c :
-
Area of the solar cell (m2)
- A n :
-
Area of the n-type of TE element (m2)
- A p :
-
Area of the p-type of TE element (m2)
- C :
-
Concentration ratio
- C p :
-
Heat capacity at 1 atmosphere (J kg−1 K−1)
- E PV :
-
Power output of the PV cell per square meter (W m−2)
- G :
-
Solar irradiance (W m−2)
- h :
-
Convection heat transfer coefficient (W m−2 K−1)
- k :
-
Thermal conductivity (W m−1 K−1)
- l n :
-
Length of the n-type of TE element (m)
- l p :
-
Length of the p-type of TE element (m)
- P :
-
Power output of the PV/TE system (W)
- P PV :
-
Electricity generated by PV cell (W)
- P TE :
-
Electricity generated by TEG (W)
- T :
-
Temperature (K)
- T amb :
-
Temperature of the ambient (K)
- u wind :
-
Wind velocity (m s−1)
- α c :
-
Absorptivity of PV cell
- φ :
-
Solar cell temperature coefficient (K−1)
- ρ :
-
Density (kg m−3)
- η :
-
Efficiency of the PV/TE system
- η c :
-
Efficiency of the solar cell at standard condition
- ε :
-
Emissivity
- σ b :
-
Stefan–Boltzmann’s constant (= 5.67 × 10−8 W m−2 K−4)
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Acknowledgements
The study was sponsored by the Project of EU Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships Program (745614), National Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51408578, 51611130195), Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (1508085 QE96), National Key Research and Development Project (2016YFE0124800), Key Projects of International Cooperation of Chinese Academy of Sciences (211134KYSB20160005).
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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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Li, G., Zhao, X., Jin, Y. et al. Performance Analysis and Discussion on the Thermoelectric Element Footprint for PV–TE Maximum Power Generation. J. Electron. Mater. 47, 5344–5351 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6421-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6421-4