{"id":1062,"date":"2010-07-01T10:49:16","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T14:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/?p=1062"},"modified":"2010-07-01T10:49:16","modified_gmt":"2010-07-01T14:49:16","slug":"solar-thermoelectric-generator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/solar-thermoelectric-generator\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Thermoelectric Generator"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Figure<\/a>

Figure 1: Solar Thermoelectric Generator (STG)<\/p><\/div>\n

Historically, thermoelectrics have been used primarily for deep-space exploration and waste-heat recovery. We explore the potential of thermoelectrics with solar energy for electricity generation. Direct solar-to-electrical energy conversion is possible with a solar thermoelectric generator (STG) (Figure 1). STGs employing cheap parabolic light concentrators and high-ZT thermoelectric materials are an attractive alternative to solar photovoltaics for micro-power applications. Earlier work on STG [1<\/a>]<\/sup> [2<\/a>]<\/sup> [3<\/a>]<\/sup> has shown low system efficiency (<1%) primarily due to small-module ZT and low solar concentration. With solar concentration of 66x suns, a system efficiency of 3% was measured for a commercial bismuth telluride (Bi2<\/sub>Te3<\/sub>) module with the output power of 1.8W [4<\/a>]<\/sup>. A thermodynamic analysis based on energy balance and heat transfer is used for predicting the thermal-to-electrical conversion efficiency for the generator (Figure 2). For radiative loss suppression, a \u201cselective surface\u201d coating is utilized which has large absorbance (0.88-0.95) near the visible wavelength (400-1200nm) and low emissivity (0.2-0.4) at wavelengths above 2.2 mm.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 2: Theoretical simulation for Bi2<\/sub>Te3<\/sub> showing module ZT and system efficiency: Without any parasitic, maximum system efficiency of 4% is achieved at 70x suns. The model is verified with an experiment at 66x suns. Parasitics are included in the theory to represent the commercial module.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The bulk retail price for a 15W thermoelectric generator is $25, giving the peak power price of $1.67\/Wp<\/sub>, where-as the retail price for a PV module is $4\/Wp<\/sub>. We compute the electricity price (cents\/kW hr) for the STG by calculating the total amount of electrical power generated within the lifetime of a generator (20 years). The electricity price for STG is within 20-35 cents\/kW hr and that for commercial PV is 20-26 cents\/kW hr. With better module design and use of materials with better thermoelectric properties at higher temperature, solar thermoelectrics can be economically competitive with small-scale PV power generation for many applications such as rural electrification in developing countries and power supply for remote sensors. We are working with a non-governmental organization (One Earth Design), to deploy thermoelectric generators as a part of Sol-Source 3-1 for solar cooking, heating and electricity generation for remote villages in rural Western China.<\/p>\n

\r\nReferences
  1. M. Telkes, \u201cSolar Thermoelectric Generators,\u201d Journal of Applied Physics<\/em>, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 765-777, June 1954. [↩<\/a>]<\/li>
  2. N. Vatcharasanthien, J. Hirunlabh, J. Khedari, and M. Daguenet, \u201cDesign and analysis of solar thermoelectric power generation system,\u201d International Journal of Sustainable Energy<\/em>, vol. 24, no. 3, September 2005. [↩<\/a>]<\/li>
  3. S.A. Omer, and D.G. Infield, \u201cDesign optimization of thermoelectric devices for solar power generation,\u201d Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells<\/em>, vol. 53, pp. 67-82, January 1998. [↩<\/a>]<\/li>
  4. R. Amatya, and R.J. Ram, \u201cSolar Thermoelectric Generator for Micropower Applications,\u201d Journal of Electronic Materials<\/em>, April 2010. [↩<\/a>]<\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Historically, thermoelectrics have been used primarily for deep-space exploration and waste-heat recovery. We explore the potential of thermoelectrics with solar…<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[63,4101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1069,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions\/1069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu2.mit.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}