Performance of a heat pump system in combination with thermoelectric generators

Abstract The investigation on the impact of various factors of thermoelectric generator (TEG) & structure on the performance of TEG & system was carried out in this paper, which is essential to improve the system performance, optimize the system design, and match better TEG parameter. Results represent that a larger figure of merit Z (or Z T ¯ ) may still lead to a reduction in system performance. When Z = 0.0016, the TEG conversion efficiency is 2.96% which is higher than 1.31% in the system with Z = 0.0028 under 800 W/m2 because the output is influenced by not only Z (or Z T ¯ ) but also Δ T / T h . The COPPVT and exergy efficiency of the system with Z = 0.0016 could be 7.35 and 29.18% which are lower than 7.52 and 29.77% in the system with Z = 0.0012. The exact influence of each parameter of Z is also explored. The TEG efficiency decreases from 2.05% to 0.83% with the rise of λ while the PV efficiency increases from 26.48% to 27.55%, but the COPPVT is changeless at 7.54. However, on the total performance, s and σ have more significant effects than λ . Running for 822 min with real environmental conditions, the average electrical efficiency and COPPVT could reach 28.10% and 6.84.