The Novel Solar Water Heating by Means of Thermoelectric Modules

Abstract

This paper is to investigate the use of solar energy for water heating by means of a couple of Thermoelectric (TE) modules i.e. TE cooling modules and TE power generation modules. Solar energy is applied to produce heat by the absorber plate at the hot side of TE modules creating the temperature difference that generates power. This power is used to drive a pumping for circulate the water which is passed the cold side of TE module for cooling and preheat water before into the solar collector. This proposed concept is very suitable for a hot country like Thailand where the solar radiation is rather high all year-round. The main objective of investigation is to study the characteristic and performance of TE modules for power generation at the low temperature which is considered as the solar energy. The maximum hourly temperature of the hot side of TE modules that can be obtained under Bangkok solar radiation intensity. It can be observed that the hot side temperature never exceed 120^oC. Therefore, we select the temperature range in the range of 40-150^oC. In order to investigate which type of TE module is suitable for the power generation at low temperature of hot side of TE, three TE modules were considered: two TE cooling modules (model B; TEC1-12708 and model C; MT2-1, 6-127) and one TE power generation module (model A; TEP1-1264-3.4) respectively.