Renewable Energy 28 (2003) 949959 www.elsevier.

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Experimental investigation on a thermoelectric refrigerator driven by solar cells

Y.J. Dai , R.Z. Wang, L. Ni
Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, China Received 14 March 2002; accepted 1 May 2002

Abstract Experimental investigation and relevant analysis on a solar cell driven, thermoelectric refrigerator has been conducted. To make the device portable, daytime use and nighttime use of the refrigerator are treated in different ways. Solar cells are applied to power the refrigerator in the day. Storage battery, assisted by an a.c. rectier, is used to provide electric energy in the night and in cloudy or rainy days. Experiment results demonstrate that the unit can maintain the temperature in the refrigerator at 510 C, and have a COP about 0.3. It is expected that the refrigerator would be potential for cold storage of vaccine, foodstuffs and drink in remote area, or outdoor applications where electric power supply is absent. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Thermoelectric refrigeration; Solar cells; Insolation rate; Cooling production

1. Introduction Refrigeration is closely related to the demand for cooling foodstuffs and many other commodities as a normal part of commercial domestic life. However, we cant have the convenience offered by refrigeration when we take outdoor activities, such as geological prospecting, archaeological study, etc. Solar refrigeration is thought of as one of the best techniques to address this issue, due to its good match to the variation of solar radiation, namely, the supply of sunshine, and the cooling output of a solar refrigeration system reach maximum levels at the same season. Solar refrigeration may be accomplished by using one of the following refrigerCorresponding author. Tel.: +8621-62933250; fax: +8621-62933250. E-mail address: yjdai@sjtu.edu.cn (Y.J. Dai).

0960-1481/03/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 6 0 - 1 4 8 1 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 5 5 - 1

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Nomenclature A CA COP E I Kt N Psolar P QC R S TH TC TW V Z a g hpv hs qmax z Area of solar array, m2; Storage capacity, Ah; Coefcient of performance; Daily electric power consumption, Ah/d; Electric current, A; Total thermal conductivity of thermoelectric module, W/K; Number of days without sunshine; Output electric power of solar cells, W; Input electric power of the thermoelectric module, W; Cooling production, W; Resistance, ; Solar insolation rate, W/m2; Temperature of hot side, K, C; Temperature of cold side, K, C; Temperature of water, K, C; Electric voltage, V; Figure of merit, 1/K; Seebeck coefcient, V/K; Correction coefcient of temperature; Energy efciency of solar cells; Efciency of storage battery; Maximum degree of electric discharging; Loss coefcient of the circuit.

ation systems: vapor compression, sorption or thermoelectric refrigeration systems. The rst two systems need high and low pressure sides of a working uid to complete the refrigeration cycle, and are somewhat difcult to be developed into a portable and light solar device used outside. The thermoelectric refrigeration system, which has the merits of being light, reliable, noiseless, rugged, and low cost in mass production, uses electrons rather than refrigerant as a heat carrier, and is feasible for outdoor purposes in cooperation with solar cells, in spite of the fact that its coefcient performance is not as high as for a vapor compression cycle [1]. In past years, much work has been reported on thermoelectric cooling [26]. P.K. Bansal [7] has compared the performance of vapor compression, thermoelectric and absorption refrigerators. T. Hara [8] investigated a solar cell driven, thermoelectric cooling prototype headgear for outside personal cooling. V.C. Mei [9] studied a solar assisted automobile thermoelectric air-conditioner. In China, solar thermoelectric refrigerators are greatly needed in remote and rural areas for cold storage of vaccine and food, since the electric power supply is absent in these regions. Especially for people working outside, for example, mineral pros-

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pecting and road construction etc., they wish to keep their food fresh and their drink cold on sunny days. The authors have undertaken the research on developing a small solar cell driven, thermoelectric refrigerator to meet the needs for outdoor use (23 persons), and applied for a patent [10] in China. The purpose of this paper is to report the experimental results of this unit, and present the relevant analysis to optimize the system performance.

2. Conguration of the solar thermoelectric refrigerator A prototype of a solar cell driven, thermoelectric refrigerator, which is mainly congured by array of solar cells, controller, storage battery, rectier and thermoelectric refrigerator, is shown in Fig. 1. In the daytime, solar cells receive solar energy and turn it into electric power supplied to the thermoelectric refrigerator by means of the photovoltaic effect. If the amount of electric power production is sufcient, the power surplus can be accumulated in a storage battery, besides driving the refrigerator. If the solar cells cannot produce sufcient electric power, for example, on cloudy or rainy days, the storage battery may offer a makeup. The controller, also an auto-switcher, plays a role in maintaining the energy conversion process in the most optimized way. At night, the storage battery, as well as a back-up a.c. rectier, is used to power the refrigerator. The thermoelectric refrigerator consists of a thermoelectric cooling module. The

Fig. 1.

Schematic of solar cell driven, thermoelectric refrigerator (prototype).

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cold side of the module is set inside the refrigerator and the hot side is set outside. A n-type heat exchanger is tied with the hot side in order to release heat more efciently. In the module, the electric current ows from the N type element to the P type element at the cold junction, whilst the current ows from the P type element to the N type one at the hot junction, the heat goes to the outside at the same time. This is the so-called Peltier effect [11]. In designing a portable thermoelectric refrigerator driven by solar cells, weight and cost of the unit are of great importance. It is expected that the unit would be as light as possible and would not be expensive. For the thermoelectric refrigerator described above, a thermoelectric cooling module and electric power supply are extremely necessary. The components that can be adjusted are solar cells and storage battery backup, since the storage battery is the heaviest component, and the solar cells are most expensive. To meet the requirements, the following operation mode should be one of good choices to be considered. Here, daytime use and nighttime use are treated in different ways: A system without a storage battery, namely solar cells+thermoelectric refrigerator, is just used for outside purposes in the daytime. A system without solar cells, namely storage battery+rectier+thermoelectric refrigerator, is only used at night when the owner is usually at rest and a.c. electric power is available. Thus the amount of required solar cells is minimum and the weight to be taken is small. Only on overcast or rainy days can the storage battery be considered for outdoor use, and the battery could still be charged by a.c. rectier beforehand. In this paper, the experiment work is focused mainly on testing the performance of the daytime used solar driven thermoelectric refrigerator without the need of a storage battery, and isnt involved in the discussion of material characteristics of a thermoelectric module.

3. Experiment 3.1. Construction of the system The amount of solar cells is determined by the requirement of the thermoelectric refrigerator. The cells can be connected in series or in parallel and should supply voltage high enough to drive the thermoelectric cooling module. The output of electric power is calculated by the following equation: Psolar SAhpv (1)

where, S is solar irradiance, A is the area of solar array to receive solar irradiation, and hpv is the efciency of energy conversion from solar energy to electric power. The capacity of the storage battery, as well as the rectier, is required to meet the need of supplying electric power without sunshine [12]. CA EN qmax(1z)hsg (2)

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Table 1 Specications of solar cell driven, thermoelectric refrigerator Array of solar cells A (m2) hpv 0.42 0.13 Storage battery CA (Ah) E (Ah/d) N (d) qmax 75.7 22 2 0.8 z hs g 0.05 0.85 0.9 Thermoelectric element a(V/K) R() Kt (W/K) Z (K1) 0.0444 2.545 0.495 1.6e-3

where, CA stands for the storage capacity (Ah), E denotes the daily electric power consumption of the thermoelectric refrigerator. N is the number of days without sunshine. qmax is the maximum degree of electric discharging. z is the loss coefcient of the circuit. hs is the efciency of the storage battery. g denotes the correction coefcient of temperature. Two solar cell panels, which are manufactured by Goy Green Energy Co. Shanghai, are used in the experiment. They can turn 13% of the total energy received from solar radiation into electric power. For each panel, its area is 0.4 m2. A thermoelectric cooling module, whose specic input power is 45 W, and specic voltage is 12 V, is the key component of the thermoelectric refrigerator The other parameters take values from Table 1. The lead acid storage battery has a capacity of 100 Ah, and can supply electric power for 24 h without sunshine. Fig. 2 shows the experiment set-up.

Fig. 2.

Experimental setup and measurement of solar cell driven, thermoelectric refrigerator.

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3.2. Measurement The parameters that have been recorded in the test are as follows, solar irradiance, voltage of thermoelectric module, ambient temperature, temperature of the cold side, temperature of the water inside the refrigerator, etc. In order to check the corresponding response of the refrigerator to a cooling load, we have put some pure water (500 ml) in the refrigerator. A data acquisition system is also presented in Fig. 2. Kethley 2700 data logger, which can detect the voltage directly, is used to collect the signals periodically. The temperatures are monitored using thermal couples (type T). Four channels of the data logger are used, channel a is left for measuring the voltage over thermoelectric module, channel b is connected to the thermocouple monitoring the cold side temperature, channel c is used by the thermocouple measuring ambient temperature, channel d is left to monitor the water temperature in the refrigerator, and channel e is left for water. Also used is a pyranometer manufactured in JIADING, Shanghai (P.R.China), which can read the data of the solar insolation rate. The storage battery and the rectier, which are not considered in the practical experiment, are also shown in a dashed rectangular frame. 3.3. Analysis It is assumed that the hot side temperature of the thermoelectric module is 13 C higher than that of the ambient temperature, and the heat conduction from outside to the internal refrigerator is neglected. The other parameters are calculated using the following equations [13,14]. Electric current: I Va(THTC) R (3)

where, a is the Seebeck coefcient of a thermoelectric cooling module, the unit is V/K. R is the electric resistance of the thermoelectric module. TH and TC are temperatures of hot side and cold side respectively. Input electric power: P aI(THTC) I2R 1 Cooling production: QC aITC I2RKt(THTC) 2 (4) (5)

where, Kt is the total thermal conductivity of the thermoelectric cooling module, the unit is W/K. Coefficient of performance: COP Figure of merit: Z a2 KtR QC P (6) (7)

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Fig. 3.

Variations of cold side temperature and ambient temperature in sunny days.

4. Experiment results and discussion Fig. 3 shows the variations of cold side temperature and ambient temperature on a sunny day. Fig. 4 gives the variations of solar irradiance and voltage over the thermoelectric module. The inclined angle of the solar panel is constant (35) in the

Fig. 4.

Variations of voltage and solar irradiance in sunny days.

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experiment. It is noted that solar insolation rate decreases from 880 W/m2 to 770W/m2 in one and half an hours with the position change of the sun. The voltage over the module is maintained at a constant level, about 12.0~12.4 V. The ambient temperature changes just a little bit. The cold side temperature of the module decreases quickly in the rst 20 min, and stays steadily below 5 C after one and half an hours. Both transient cooling production and COP of the thermoelectric refrigerator decrease with cold side temperature. COP becomes from 0.5 to 0.25, and cooling production decreases from 26 W to about 12 W in the end, as is shown in Fig. 5. Variations of cold side temperature, ambient temperature and water temperature versus time are plotted in Fig. 6. It is found that the cold side temperature could be reduced to about 5 C in three hours, whilst the water temperature drops to about 10 C, and may go down continuously. Plots of irradiance and voltage over the thermoelectric module vs time are shown in Fig. 7. The solar irradiance varies in the range of 550700 W/m2, and the voltage stays at about 13 V during the experimental period. It is also noted that COP stays at about 0.23 and cooling production stays steadily at around 12 W after one more hours operating. These relationships are displayed in Fig. 8.

5. Conclusions A solar cell driven, thermoelectric refrigerator, which is expected to provide a refrigeration service for persons in outdoor activities, such as mineral prospecting, road constructing, etc., has been presented in this paper. In order to meet the requirements of less weight and low cost, operation modes of the refrigerator adopted in

Fig. 5.

Variations of COP and QC in sunny days.

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Fig. 6.

Variations of Tc and Tw, loaded with 500 ml water, in sunny days.

Fig. 7.

Variations of voltage and solar irradiance, loaded with 500 ml water, in sunny days.

daytime and night time are set in different ways. Solar cells are just used to supply electric power for thermoelectric module in daytime, and storage battery, as well as a.c. rectier is used in night time. Experiment and analysis on the unit has been conducted mainly under sunshine conditions. The refrigerator can maintain the tem-

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Fig. 8.

Variations of COP and QC, loaded with 500 ml water, in sunny days.

perature in refrigerated space at 5~10 C, and has a COP about 0.3. The device is applicable for cold storage of vaccine, foodstuffs and drink in remote areas, or outdoor applications where an electric power supply is absent.

Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Prof. R.Q. Cui, Institute of Solar Energy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, for his assistance in this experimental work.

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