Abstract:

Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) is a new trend in renewable energy issues that utilize heat energy to produce electricity from various waste energy sources. These sources are available from natural sources like geothermal and solar heat and recovering from many industrial processes. In this paper, the electrical performance of a TEG system has been analyzed when the Incremental Conductance - maximum power point tracker (INC-MPPT) control algorithm has been applied to maximize the energy conversion efficiency. The TEG system has been simulated, implemented and tested at different values of temperature difference. Simulation and experimental results show that, the proposed control algorithm can be operated at the maximum power point (MPP) of the TEG module at any operating condition with good accuracy and low fluctuation around this point. Also, the experimental results show that, the harvested power has been duplicated by more than six times by applying the INC-MPPT algorithm (11.9W) in comparing with connection without MPPT (1.9W) at the same resistive load (16Ω), the same applied temperature and the same operating conditions.  

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