Performance estimation of photovoltaic-thermoelectric hybrid systems

A theoretical model for evaluating the efficiency of concentrating PV TE (photovoltaic thermoelectric) hybrid system is developed in this paper. Hybrid systems with different photovoltaic cells are studied, including crystalline silicon photovoltaic cell, silicon thin-film photovoltaic cell, polymer photovoltaic cell and copper indium gallium selenide photovoltaic cell. The influence of temperature on the efficiency of photovoltaic cell has been taken into account based on the semiconductor equations, which reveals different efficiency temperature characteristic of polymer photovoltaic cells. It is demonstrated that the polycrystalline silicon thin-film photovoltaic cell is suitable for concentrating PV TE hybrid system through optimization of the convection heat transfer coefficient and concentrating ratio. The polymer photovoltaic cell is proved to be suitable for non-concentrating PV TE hybrid system. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.