(InTechOpen, 2016) Aranguren Garacochea, Patricia; Astrain Ulibarrena, David; Mekanika, Energetika eta Materialen Ingeniaritza; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Mecánica, Energética y de Materiales
One of the biggest challenges of the twenty‐first century is to satisfy the demand for
electrical energy in an environmentally speaking clean way. Thus, it is very important
to search for new alternative energy sources along with increasing the efficiency of
current processes. Thermoelectric power generation, by means of harvesting waste heat
and converting it into electricity, can help to achieve above‐mentioned goal. Nowadays,
efficiency of thermoelectric power generators limits them to become key technology in
electric power generation, but their performance has potential of being optimized, if
thermal design of such generators is optimized. Heat exchangers located on both sides
of thermoelectric modules (TEMs), mass flow of refrigerants and occupancy ratio (the
area covered by TEMs related to base area), among others, need to be fine‐tuned in order
to obtain the maximum net power generation (thermoelectric power generation minus
consumption of auxiliary equipment). Finned dissipator, cold plate, heat pipe and
thermosiphon are experimentally tested to maximize net thermoelectric generation on
real‐working furnace based on computational model. Maximum generation of 137
MWh/year using thermosiphons is achieved with 32% of area covered by TEMs.
