Outdoor performance investigation of a thermoelectric cooler-integrated solar air heating collector

Abstract

Solar air heating systems are continuously being improved by combining them with other energy conversion technologies. In this paper, outdoor tests were carried out on a thermoelectric heat-pumping solar air heater (TE-SAH), with four (04) TECs (TEC1–12706) attached to the backside of the absorber plate, and powered by a 40Wp mono-Si PV module to pump heat from the absorber plate into the heated air. The thermal energy production, energy efficiency, heat loss coefficients, and heat removal factor were evaluated and compared with a reference system without TECs. The heat collection and energy efficiency of the solar air heater were improved by 7.14 % and 66.71 %, respectively, with the integration of TECs. Heat losses also decreased by 0.46 MJ. Furthermore, the estimated heat removal factor for the TE-SAH was 0.55, higher than 0.49 obtained for the reference SAH. These results showed that PV-TE heat-pumping is a viable means of improving the thermal performance of solar air heaters.