Photovoltaic-thermoelectric hybrid systems: A general optimization methodology

The present work outlines a general optimization methodology for hybrid systems consisting of photovoltaic (PV) and thermoelectric (TE) modules. Exemplarily, hybrid systems with hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon, hydrogenated amorphous silicon, and bulk heterojunction polymer thin-film solar cell for different solar TE generator efficiencies are evaluated. The proposed methodology optimizes the partitioning of the solar spectrum in order to yield the maximum conversion efficiency of a PV-TE hybrid system with a solar cell operating at ambient temperature. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.