Experimental investigation on spectrum beam splitting photovoltaic–thermoelectric generator under moderate solar concentrations

Abstract

An experimental study is carried out to investigate performance of three different solar energy harvesting systems. The critical electrical outputs of a photovoltaic (PV) cell and a thermoelectric generator (TEG) namely voltage, current and maximum power generation are obtained in a PV-only and a TEG-only system. The results are compared with performance of a hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric generator-beam splitter (PV-TEG-BS) system. The impact of spectral beam splitting technique on performance of the hybrid system is investigated. The results show that, although using the beam splitting technique decreases power generation of the TEG compared to the TEG-only case, it significantly enhances power generation of the PV cell in the hybrid PV-TEG-BS system and provides a higher overall power generation. By showing remarkable impact of the spectrum splitting technique on performance of the PV, the results of this study provide a guideline for performance evaluation of hybrid PV-TEG-BS systems.