Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Using Passive Cooler and Reflective at Solar Heating Thermoelectric Generator System

In this study, a thermoelectric generator (TEG) system is designed for the generation of electricity from solar energy. A temperature difference between surfaces of TEG must be achieved for electricity generation. Heating is provided by a solar-powered two-phase closed thermosiphon type heat pipe. For the cooling of the other surface, a passive refrigerant without additional energy is preferred. For cooling, a cooler with a capacity of 1200cc is designed. The passive cooler in which the water is used as a coolant is manufactured in two sections, primary and secondary, in order to provide effective cooling and to help the natural circulation. While only one TEG was used in many studies in the literature, it was aimed to produce more electricity by means of a simple, easy and inexpensive design with 5 TEGs in this study. Not only have the effect of passive cooler but also reflective use been studied experimentally. For this purpose, the system is operated in three different conditions: non-reflective, semi-reflective and full reflective. Electrical and thermal data are automatically collected on a computer. Data obtained from 08:00 to 15:00 were used for comparison.