Title: Thermodynamic assessment of TEG-ORC combined cycle powered by solar energy

Authors: Sudarshan Kumar; Dibyendu Roy; Sudip Ghosh

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, P.O. – B. Garden, Howrah-711103, W.B., India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, P.O. – B. Garden, Howrah-711103, W.B., India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, P.O. – B. Garden, Howrah-711103, W.B., India

Abstract: In this paper, thermodynamic analysis of a solar powered hybrid system consisting of thermoelectric generator (TEG) and organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is presented. High temperature thermic fluid (Dowtherm A), coming from parabolic solar concentrator (PSC), is used to supply heat to the hot end of TEG and to the heat recovery vapour generator (HRVG). The cold end of TEG acts as a preheater for downstream ORC, where heat is recovered by the ORC working fluid (R134a). In the base case analysis, the TEG gives a fixed power output of 500 W and accordingly its heat supply and heat rejection rates are estimated. The combined TEG-ORC system gives 7.5 kW of power at an overall efficiency of 9.75% in the base case configuration. The performance of the combined system is analysed under varying hot end temperature (HET).

Keywords: thermoelectric generator; TEG; organic Rankine cycle; ORC; parabolic solar concentrator; PSC; combined cycle; solar energy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRET.2017.088983

International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology, 2017 Vol.8 No.3/4, pp.346 - 359

Received: 12 Jan 2017
Accepted: 10 Jul 2017
Published online: 03 Jan 2018 *

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