Thermoelectric waste heat recovery with cooling system for low gradient temperature using power conditioning to supply 28V to a DC bus

A thermoelectric generator (TEG) can be defined as a low voltage high-current dc power with a linear I-V feature. Even though efficiencies for TEGs are as low as 3-5%, useful electricity generation is possible due to the great amount of heat emitted from almost any electric device. The idea is to convert the thermal energy from any source releasing waste heat directly to electrical energy by a thermoelectric generator (TEG). It is then conditioned by a DC/DC flyback converter to supply 28V to a dc bus. The thermoelectric generator has a cooling system of cold water pipe running through one side of the device to keep the temperature constant. This paper proposes an experiment to investigate the TEG characteristics at low gradient temperature. Analysis, design and simulations of the power conditioner in MATLAB/Simulink are carried out. Simulation results show that the proposed system can work well and is optimistic to the industry.