Analysis, modeling, and simulation of thin-film cells-based photovoltaic generator combined with multilayer thermoelectric generator

A new model for a multi-stage thermoelectric generator (TEG) is developed. An electrical and thermal model is built and simulated for different configurations of photovoltaic (PV) standalone hybrid systems, combining different stages of a TEG. The approach is evaluated with and without cooling by coupling a cold plate to a multi-stage hybrid PVTEG system. The model can be adjusted by sizing and specifying the influence of stage number on the overall produced power. Amorphous silicon thin-film (a-Si) is less affected by rising temperature compared to other technology. Hence, it was chosen for evaluating the lower limit gain in a hybrid system under various ambient temperatures and irradiances. The dynamics of the PVTEG system are presented under different coolant water flow rates. Finally, comparative electrical efficiency in reference to PV stand-alone was found to be 99.2% for PVTEG without cooling, 113.5% for PVTEG, and 117.3% for multi-stage PVTEG, accordingly installing multi-stage PVTEG at Israel in a typical year with an average PV yield of 1750 kWh/kW/year generates an extra 24 kWh/year per module hence avoiding fossil energy and equivalent CO₂ emissions.