journal article·2010-09

Solar Thermoelectric Generator for Micropower Applications

R. Amatya, R. J. Ram

Journal of Electronic Materials· Volume 39· Issue 9
Publisher page

Abstract

Solar thermoelectric generators (STG) using cheap parabolic concentrators with high-ZT modules can be a cost-effective alternative to solar photovoltaics for micropower generation. A thermodynamic analysis is presented for predicting the thermal-to-electrical conversion efficiency for the generator. With solar concentration of 66× suns, a system efficiency of 3% was measured for a commercial Bi2Te3 module with output power of 1.8 W. Using novel thermoelectric materials such as n-type ErAs:(InGaAs)1−x (InAlAs) x and p-type (AgSbTe) x (PbSnTe)1−x , a conversion efficiency of 5.6% can be achieved for a STG at 120× suns.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices · Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies · Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

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