Effective thermoelectric generation by use of heat stored in a thermal accumulator

This paper presents the work about thermoelectric generation by use of the limited mass of heat which is recovered from unused energy and stored in a thermal accumulator. When a thermoelectric generator is operated by using heat stored in a thermal accumulator, the temperature of heat source drops and causes decrease of generated power and conversion efficiency. In this case to obtain maximum electricity generated from the limited mass of heat the thermoelectric generator should be controlled as the conversion efficiency could be maximum by monitoring the temperature of the heat medium and the net power which is subtracted from the pumping power required for circulation from the gross power. But it is difficult to measure conversion efficiency in transient condition. Thus, in this paper a maximum net power tracking control of a thermoelectric generator is proposed and experimentally evaluated