Performance Analysis of Solar Photovoltaic (PV)-Thermoelectric (TEG) Hybrid Energy System for Electricity Generation

The solar spectrum responsible for PV operation comprises the ultra-violent, visible and invisible radiation. The increase in cell temperature due to the invisible radiation in the solar spectrum reduces the solar PV performance. This research investigated the performance of solar PV-TEG hybrid energy system for energy optimization in comparison with simple solar PV system. The solar PV-TEG hybrid energy system is one on which thermoelectric generators (TEG) were couple with PV module for conversion of the excess heat energy due to rise in cell temperature to electrical energy. The output parameters of both systems such as; short circuit currents open circuit voltages and PV cell temperature were measured with respect to incident solar radiation. The power production and efficiencies for the simple PV and hybrid PV-TEG systems were evaluated and compared, The results revealed that at maximum value of 920 W/m2 average hourly sun radiations, 57.9 W useful PV power input was simultaneously utilized by the simple PV and hybrid PV-TEG systems. The operating temperatures of the simple PV and the hybrid PV-TEG systems varies from 64.5°C to 58.9°C which is 9.94%, reduction. The simple PV and hybrid PV-TEG short circuit currents and open circuit voltages varies with values (17.8 to 20.13 V) and (0.56 to 0.57 A), which have increased by 1.78% and 14.1% respectively. However, with respective values 10.14 W and 11.58 W of power outputs an increase of 14.5 % was realized. These enable enhancing respective 17.5 % and 20 % energy efficiencies. The overall power output and efficiency of the hybrid PV-TEG energy system reported were 11.67 W and 20.2% which showed increased by 15.09 % and 15.43% respectively compared to the simple PV system. Moreover, the statistical analysis conducted reported quality of the measured results and inequality of the respective pairs of output values with P-values of 0.000 in each case. Therefore, integrating PV module with TEG enables reduction .......