Theoretical efficiency of solar thermoelectric energy generators

By Gang Chen. 2011

146 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper investigates the theoretical efficiency of solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs). A model is established including thermal concentration in addition to optical concentration. Based on the model, the maximum efficiency of STEGs is a product of the opto-thermal efficiency and the device efficiency. The device efficiency increases but the opto-thermal efficiency decreases with increasing hot side temperature, leading to an optimal hot-side temperature that maximizes the STEG efficiency. For a given optical concentration ratio, this optimal hot-side temperature depends on the thermoelectric materials’ nondimensional figure-or-merit, the optical properties of wavelength-selective surface and the efficiency of the optical system. Operating in an evacuated environment, STEGs can have attractive efficiency with little or no optical concentration working in the low temperature range (150–250 °C) for which Bi2Te3-based materials are suitable.

Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0ddecce61cd4e860fbb01781ec2ea14b248fa061

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Civil and Structural Engineering

1. D. Kraemer
2. K. McEnaney
3. Matteo Chiesa
4. Wei-hsin Chen
5. Gang Chen
6. C. Wang
7. Chen-I Hung
8. A. McGaughey

In Materials Chemistry

1. D. Kraemer
2. K. McEnaney
3. Matteo Chiesa
4. Gang Chen
5. Wei-hsin Chen
6. C. Wang
7. Chen-I Hung
8. Zhiting Tian

Citations in the corpus

• Modeling and simulation for the design of thermal-concentrated solar thermoelectric generator (2014, background): “The thermal concentration is characterized by the thermal concentration ratio (Cth) which is defined as the area ratio of the solar absorber to the cross-sectional area of the thermoelectric elements [20,21].”
• Modeling and optimization of solar thermoelectric generators for terrestrial applications (2012, methodology): “12 is the optothermal efficiency of the unicouple STEG which is often split into an optical and thermal concentrating collector efficiency (Rowe, 1981; Duffie and Beckman, 2006; Kraemer et al., 2011; Chen, 2011).”