A High Efficiency Micro-Thermophotovoltaic Generator System
- Technology Benefits
- -Micro-TPV reactors see up to a 27-fold increase in their efficiency and power output-Solar thermal TPV systems see up to a 45-fold increase in their efficiency to exceed the Shockley-Quiesser limit for a single-junction photovoltaic cell.-The invention paves the way towards a fully integrated, fully functional micro-scale TPV power generator.
- Technology Application
- Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems
- Detailed Technology Description
- None
- *Abstract
-
Problem:-Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems generally exhibit extremely low power conversion efficiencies -- on the order of 1% or less -- mostly due to thermal emission of undesirable mid-wavelength infrared photons.-The design of photonic crystals which have the potential to strongly suppress these losses is complex and generally present a non-convex design optimization problem.Technology:Solving the above problems requires efficient objective function evaluation as well as efficient global optimization algorithms. In this invention, both requirements are met in order to design two new systems: micro-TPV generators and solar thermal TPV systems. A power electronics architecture is also demonstrated which is suitable for TPV power generation. Low-power sensing techniques is incorporated and high power conversion efficiency and small size is achieved. A tracking efficiency above 99% is demonstrated. This invention also demonstrates a micro-TPV system generating 150 mW with the MPPT converter.
- Country/Region
- USA
For more information, please click Here
