Recent Development of Thermophotovoltaic System for Waste Heat Harvesting Application and Potential Implementation in Thermal Power Plant

Rapid depletion of fossil fuels due to the growing demand for energy has resulted in a worldwide concern to improve energy conversion efficiency. Yet, the energy conversion of conventional fossil fuel power generation plants remains relatively low (less than 40%) and a huge amount of energy is wasted in the form of heat, leading to global warming issues. Recycling and recuperating even a small portion of energy losses could provide a huge impact on energy saving and minimize the reliance on fossil fuels. Thermophotovoltaic system appears to be a potential candidate to capture, recover, and convert waste heat energy into useful electricity. This paper presents an overview of the recent development of thermophotovoltaic technology for waste heat recovery applications. Each component in the thermophotovoltaic system including thermophotovoltaic generator/heat source, thermal emitter, spectral filter and thermophotovoltaic cells is vital and can be engineered to achieve a better heat-to-electricity conversion efficiency. Recently, researchers have shown great interest in near-field thermophotovoltaic systems where higher power intensity can be captured by the thermophotovoltaic cell, thus improving the overall system performance. Furthermore, the potential locations for energy scavenging in thermal power plants is investigated based on the on-site temperature measurement. In Malaysia, it is estimated that around 3,831 GWh of waste heat energy could be saved in operational thermal power plants. This review will contribute to the knowledge for future development thermophotovoltaic systems in waste heat recovery applications while summarizing the potential locations for energy scavenging in thermal power plants.