Annual Energy Harvesting of Passively Cooled Hybrid Thermoelectric Generator-Concentrator Photovoltaic Modules

Abstract

Approximately 60% of the incident energy is dissipated as heat in conventional concentrator photovoltaic modules. The hybridization with thermoelectric generators (TEGs) aims to recover part of the waste heat and transform it to electricity. Recently, the feasibility of passively cooled designs has been assessed for small sized solar cells (3 mm × 3 mm). It is expected that novel prototypes will be developed according to this concept. However, the existing feasibility studies are based on reference operating conditions, while the behavior of the hybrid modules under changing atmospheric conditions remains unknown. In this article, real atmospheric data of Jaen, Southern Spain, including irradiance, temperature, and spectral data, are used to analyze the behavior of four designs of TEG-concentrator photovoltaic modules: low ZT-low temperature (A), low ZT-high temperature (B), high ZT-low temperature (C), and high ZT-high temperature (D). This behavior is compared with that of a typical concentrator photovoltaic-only module. Results show that, while the global efficiency at reference conditions can be enhanced up to 4.75%, the annual averaged global efficiency can only be increased up to 4.30%. The results of this article will help to understand the impact of the atmospheric conditions on the real behavior of these structures.