Effect of thermoelectric cooler (TEC) integrated at the base of opaque photovoltaic (PV) module to enhance an overall electrical efficiency

Abstract

In this paper, an opaque photovoltaic integrated thermoelectric cooler (PV-TEC) collector has been proposed, wherein thermoelectric (TEC) module is integrated at the base of opaque photovoltaic (PV) module for the enhancement of an overall electrical efficiency. A thermal model has been derived for opaque PV-TEC collector with and without air duct. The effect of packing area of TEC module has been analyzed for the opaque PV-TEC collector without air duct by considering two cases: [case (a)] partially covered with TEC and [case (b)] fully covered with TEC. Further, an experimental investigation of opaque PV-TEC collector without air duct partially covered with TEC [case (a)], for Buraidah, Saudi Arabia has been carried out. The experimental setup comprises of an opaque photovoltaic module integrated with 36 TEC modules, each having an area of 4 cm × 4 cm. The results indicate a fair agreement between theoretical and experimental values of solar cell temperature (r = 0.916, e = 8.41) and TEC bottom-end temperature (r = 0.981, e = 12.5) for opaque PV-TEC collector partially covered with TEC without air duct [case (a)]. Also, the overall electrical energy gains of [case (a)] opaque PV-TEC collector partially covered with TEC without air duct and [case (b)] opaque PV-TEC collector fully covered with TEC without air duct have been computed, theoretically. The results illustrate that the overall electrical efficiency of [case (b)] is higher than [case (a)] by 4.46–6.23%. The opaque PV-TEC collector without air duct generates only electrical energy, whereas the opaque PV-TEC collector with air duct produces both thermal and electrical energy. Finally, the derived thermal model has been used to evaluate the performance of opaque PV-TEC collector with air duct in terms of thermal gain, electrical gain and overall exergy gain.