Performance investigation of photovoltaic-thermoelectric (PV-TE) hybrid power generation systems

In this thesis study, electro-thermal performances of photovoltaic (PV), photovoltaic-thermoelectric (PV-TE) and concentrated photovoltaic thermal (CPVT) were investigated. Numerical methods were developed such as, finite difference method for PV and PV-TE system and finite volumes method for conventional and bifacial CPVT systems. Thus, performances of PV and PV-TE system and numerical analysis of CPVT systems are examined and compared. An improvement in numerical temperature estimation of PV modules was done. In the obtained results, the estimation results of the proposed model were close to the measured values. Comparison of homogeneous and non-homogeneous operation conditions in PV and PV-TE systems and the contribution of TE and PV-TE numerical model were examined. The results show that TE module contribution is negligible at the low irradiations. However, the fact that the difference between different distributions in the non-homogeneous alternative PV-TE system is less than that of the PV system provides some power both in PV modules and TE modules. In thermal model of PV-TE crossection, temperature of PV module exceeds 42.5 ⁰C. While the cold side temperature of TE module is close to experimental data, hot side temperature of the TE module is more less 4-5 ⁰C. In CPVT system, finite volumes method was developed for bifacial CPVT system. Performances of conventional and proposed CPVT system were investigated for water and R134a fluid in different fluid input temperatures. According to obtained results, electricity of proposed CPVT system is more than standard system about 26%. As a result, solar energy utilization is more efficient.