Abstract
The paper reports an ongoing research project carried out in order to design a gas-fired thermoelectric generator (TEG) for island mode power supply of natural gas metering stations. The target output power ranges between 50 and 100 watts and the objective of the device is to provide power supply for small metering stations, which are currently not connected to electric networks and remain invisible for the gas dispatching center. Accordingly, some of the possible failures/leakages in the network may remain undetected even if battery-supplied metering systems are installed on-site, since these systems fail to communicate with the dispatching center. First of all, key assumptions done for the design of the device and its purpose of operation are explained. Then, several possible design configurations as well as the location of the generator within a gas metering station are discussed. Also, a preliminary heat transfer model was built to observe the impact of the thermal output of the burner, air excess ratio and the ambient parameters on the temperature levels achieved at both sides of the thermoelectric modules, which influences the generated electric output. Next, a more detailed numerical model was built to investigate the impact of the selected design configurations on the performance i.e. temperatures at the TEG and power output. Seven parameters were estimated to be non-monotonically related to the generated power. In terms of these seven parameters optimization has been undertaken and three configurations has been proposed. The paper also discusses issues related to the safety of operation and the possible utilization of waste heat generated during the operation of the device. Several waste heat recovery systems were considered.
Published Version
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