Feasibility Study of Using Thermoelectric Modules for Cooling Photovoltaic Cells

Photovoltaic cells utilize the solar radiation to generate electric power. As the efficiencies of these cells highly depend on temperature, the goal of this paper is to study the feasibility of improving the net output power by using thermoelectric cooling. A parametric study of the available radiation at different environmental temperatures is performed. The results demonstrate that by utilizing the TEC modules, the efficiency of these cells can be increased if an appropriate amount of current is supplied to the module. Furthermore, as the irradiance increases, the power gained from the cooled modules becomes increasingly higher than that of uncooled ones. Also, at an optimum irradiance the net power output reaches a maximum amount.