Performance improvement of a photovoltaic - Thermoelectric hybrid system subjecting to fluctuant solar radiation

Jin Zhang and Yimin Xuan

Renewable Energy, 2017, vol. 113, issue C, 1551-1558

Abstract: The traditional photovoltaic - thermoelectric (PV - TE) hybrid system is improved by introducing adjustable cooling blocks to reduce the temperature fluctuation caused by the change of the solar radiation. By controlling the cycles of water in the cooling blocks, the new cooling system can adjust the number of the TE generator cooled by water to decrease the temperature fluctuation. An experimental setup is designed to test the new PV - TE hybrid system. Due to the reduction of the temperature fluctuation, the new cooling system can improve the output power. The new hybrid system is also compared with the system in which the phase change materials (PCM) is placed between the PV cell and the TE module. The numerical results show that the difference between the output power of the new PV - TE hybrid system and that of the PV - PCM - TE hybrid system is low enough to be ignored.

Keywords: Thermoelectric generator; Photovoltaic module; PV-TE hybrid system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:113:y:2017:i:c:p:1551-1558

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.07.003

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