Complementary performance enhancement of PV energy system through thermoelectric generation

Abstract

The solar insolation received on earth have different components in which power is embedded. Out of many, visible spectrum and thermal spectrum are separately used to harvest energy through solar thermal or solar photovoltaic systems respectively. Photovoltaic (PV) panels are reported to experience undesirably high temperature rise due to heat accumulation from solar radiation which is not actively converted into electricity. This undesirable heat decreases conversion efficiency of PV panels. Thermoelectric module (TEM) in coordination with PV panel is proposed to recover and convert this waste heat energy to useful electrical energy. This paper demonstrates the capability of proposed system for electrical power generation from waste heat developed in PV panel in addition to generation from PV systems. Dynamic model of photovoltaic thermoelectric hybrid (PTH) system is developed in SIMULINK/ MATLAB environment based on electrical and thermal characteristics of the material. Simulation results for maximum energy harvesting for PTH system are presented under dynamic perturbations in solar radiations. Proposed control scheme ensures maximum energy harvesting without allowing system to operate at temperature out of prescribed limits for PV or TEM. It has been observed in the simulation that PTH system effectively handles the load and source transitions, which validates the scheme.