Power generation performance of novel photovoltaic system integrated with thermoelectric generator and phase change material for building application

Abstract

Due to the economic recession from the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, energy-efficient building retrofitting has been regarded as an integrated approach to recover the economic problem and to help the greenhouse gas reduction, which requires more enhanced building-integrated generation systems. Although the building-integrated photovoltaic system is a commonly used generation system for building application, this system has a limitation in that solar thermal energy cannot be converted as electricity. To overcome this limitation of the building-integrated photovoltaic system, this study evaluated the energy generation potential of a thermoelectric generator-assisted building-integrated photovoltaic system with a phase change material. The combination of a thermoelectric generator and phase change material with photovoltaic systems has two main advantages; solar cell temperature reduction due to the latent heat capacity of the phase change material, additional electricity gain from temperature difference to electricity via Seebeck effect in the thermoelectric generator. Simulations of the proposed system were performed using MATLAB R2020a, based on transient energy balance equations. The appropriate melting temperature and thickness of the phase change material were derived to maximize the annual electricity generation of the proposed system from simulations of 12 design days each month. The proposed system with the selected phase change material conditions showed 1.09 % annual increase in generation output and 0.91 %, −1.32 %, 2.25 %, and 3.16 % generation improvements from spring to winter, compared with the building-integrated photovoltaic system alone. Theoretically, the proposed system was expected to generate 4.47 % more energy by ideal heat sink design into phase change material and improved conversion efficiency of the thermoelectric generator.