Numerical and Experimental Comparison of Passive Cooling Effect on Photovoltaic- Thermoelectric Generator hybrid System Performance

Abstract

In this paper, a 3D numerical model to investigate the efficiency of solar energy harvesting using photovoltaic panels combined with thermoelectric generator modules (PV-TEG) was built. Furthermore, the effects of different numbers and distributions of thermoelectric modules by using a passive cooling unit on the performance of PV-TEG system were investigated. Seven models of hybrid system (M1-M7) with different numbers and distributions of TEG items were tested and simulated numerically. In addition, the optimum model performance of (PV-TEG) was compared with that of photovoltaic only and photovoltaic/ thermal (PV/T) system. Based on the results obtained, the optimum model of hybrid system was M1. Also, electrical power of the PV-TE system, when exposed to solar radiation of 1000 W/m2 and ambient temperature of 25 ºC, was higher by 16.3% and 1.79% than that of the PV only and PV/T system, respectively. Besides, performance of M1 model was validated by experimental work in the indoor environment under the same operation conditions. The experimental results showed that the enhancement ratio of Pel of the (M1) model is higher by 15.13 and 0.8 % compared with the photovoltaic panel and the PV/T system. It can be seen that the numerical results for all studied parameters show a good level of agreement with experimental results. Ultimately, the effect of passive cooling on the PV-TEG system performance was lower.