TITLE:
Energy Analyses of Thermoelectric Renewable Energy Sources
AUTHORS:
Jarman T. Jarman, Essam E. Khalil, Elsayed Khalaf
KEYWORDS:
Solar Energy; Two Stage Concentrator; Mathematical Modeling; Thermal Analysis; Thermoelectric Power Generation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Energy Efficiency,
Vol.2 No.4,
September
27,
2013
ABSTRACT: The recent energy crisis and environmental burden are becoming
increasingly urgent and drawing enormous attention to solar-energy utilization.
Direct solar thermal power generation technologies, such as, thermoelectric,
thermionic, magneto hydrodynamic, and alkali-metal thermoelectric methods, are
among the most attractive ways to provide electric energy from solar heat. Direct
solar thermal power generation has been an attractive electricity generation
technology using a concentrator to gather solar radiation on a heat collector
and then directly converting heat to electricity through a thermal electric
conversion element. Compared with the traditional indirect solar thermal power
technology utilizing a steam-turbine generator, the direct conversion
technology can realize the thermal to electricity conversion without the
conventional intermediate mechanical conversion process. The power system is,
thus, easy to extend, stable to operate, reliable, and silent, making the
method especially suitable for some small-scale distributed energy supply
areas. Also, at some occasions that have high requirements on system stability,
long service life, and noiselessness demand, such as military and deep-space
exploration areas, direct solar thermal power generation has very attractive
merit in practice. At present, the realistic conversion efficiency of direct
solar thermal power technology is still not very high, mainly due to material
restriction and inconvenient design. However, from the energy conversion
aspect, there is no conventional intermediate mechanical conversion process in
direct thermal power conversion, which therefore guarantees the enormous
potential of thermal power efficiency when compared with traditional indirect
solar thermal power technology [1].