Semaver ile Entegre Termovoltaik Gerilim Kaynağı

Abstract

Renewable energy sources are becoming very important in today’s World. Waste heat from industrial processes is very common in the world and such sources can be used to obtain electric power. Thermovoltaic power sources are getting cheaper and their electrical power output is getting higher due to technological developments. They have been used with waste heat sources such as hot water flowing out of factories and to obtain electrical sources. Nowadays, new application areas of thermovoltaic power sources are being looked for. Samovars, which burn brushwood, are pretty commonly used in rural areas to prepare warm drinks such as tea. Samovars only supply thermal power to boil water and they can be regarded as low-grade heat sources since they release a considerable amount of heat to the ambiance. Integrating a thermovoltaic power source onto a samovar would turn it into a voltage source and also increase its overall energy efficiency. Such a system may allow charging batteries of low power loads such as flashlights and cell phones in rural areas where it is hard to reach the electrical grid. In this study, a thermovoltaic power source is integrated with a samovar for the first time in the literature and the performance of such a system is experimentally inspected. It has been found that the system’s electrical power output is low, the air convection around the semiconductor pairs of the module may be contributing to its low power performance, and a more complex system model is needed to model it accurately.