1618 Putting A Thermo Electric Generator On Solar Panels

[@goldcountryruss7035]

The version that powers a fan to spread heat from a wood stove is very practical, however. They work very quietly and can really help spreading heat throughout the house. We will never be without either the wood stove or the fan.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I am not saying they don't have uses mate - they most certainly do

[@thatcheapguy525]

I guess you could combine a solar hot water system behind the PV panel using something like an adapted car radiator core. the hot water produced could be purposed into running a passive HVAC system as well as its obvious use

[@dieiceNGC]

There is already a solar panel like this. Search "linustechtips water cooled solar panel"

[@seancole7087]

There are actually a few panels that do that. The panels are designed with some kind of heatsink to pull the heat into an area where water can cool it. Increases the efficiency of the panel, plus you get hot water for its uses.

[@edwardmyers7734]

I was thinking of using them on an old direct dish painted with chrome to see how much power I'd get from it. Thanks for verifying the idea.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

glad it helped mate

[@WSmith_1984]

Using a solar collector/cooker would also provide a way to focus the heat..... this could be done in conjunction with a thermal boiler to heat water as well.....

[@agritech802]

Thanks for another great video, your videos should be included as part of the school curriculum

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

wow - cheers mate - that's a very kind thing to say

[@inventanew]

so cool, thanks for all your work, things like this will advance our society

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@maddhatter3564]

TY my friend across the pond, good work. I've been concidering this but never fully calculated price. Overall im more excited about these than i am solar.

[@tsusec]

Thank you sir... After watching your videos, sometimes i get ideas to think and read about. This may be quite cheasy but you sir would be an interesting person to talk with while drinking a pint of beer. Trust me on this one, im an engineer.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

then it would be a very interesting conversation - and a good beer - win win mate lol - cheers

[@InformerOutsider]

\@@ThinkingandTinkering

[@InformerOutsider]

@@ThinkingandTinkering `f

[@petercoutu4726]

Yes, I have been waiting to build this for a while.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

awesome

[@azlandpilotcar4450]

Great demonstration. I really like your design of this experiment. But a Seebeck effect device, a thermocouple, made as you have done by alternating graphene and metallic paint, applied directly on the shade side of the PV panel might be a little cheaper to produce, even if less productive. And harvesting the heat from cooling the thermocouple could supplement heating of domestic hot water. Like your discussion and critique of commercial wind turbine ratings, a lot of PV cell production cost and benefit ratings are based on "bursty" theoretical peak performance ideals -- e.g. 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the tropics for more than half of the samples from prototype production, installed at the perfect orientation, before transmission or storage loss -- and not on temperate zone off-hours production of the device actually delivered to and installed on a Northern Hemisphere household rooftop. Your relative cost of TEG and PV cost is right on, but you have gone for the most favorable rating and cost on the PV panels.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

wow - cheers mate and yes I agree with you on the paint graphene idea and on costings - but I went for most favourable to avoid argument on that point really

[@coldlife2002]

I am a bit of a tinkerer but I think my greatest skill may never have been used. I see some really incredible "thinkers" here. I chose this reply to comment because it was at the top. That being said the absolutely staggering amount of raw innovative intellect in this comment section utilized collectively without simple reservation of finance...could..no is! the evolutionary path we CAN follow. I require the assistance of all so that I can facilitate (personal excelling is short sighted) both connecting and expediting all the nooks of human life that miss the spotlight but excel beyond imagination. I am not looking to grow a subscriber base, I will gladly forget my own ego. I just want enough to be able to help. I have seen Rockefeller effect, I have seen Hitler affect...I simply want to effect...together. Back me.

[@coldlife2002]

yes, I would accept becoming a president but only if I had enough contact me that i felt confident that i had the information required to connect sources with resources. I cannot change the world. We can. Let me help us. WE are the answer to the WE problem.

[@astroEnthusiast1]

I liked your video and was considering building a thermoelectric generator to go along with my solar generator but won't go down that avenue, due to the cost you've pointed out. Thank you!

[@stevetobias4890]

Cool video Rob, thanks for your time yet again.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate - glad you liked it

[@stupidscruff]

Thanks for trying that for me lol, think I'll continue with the wind turbines for now being in a windy place lol. I'm learning electronic engineering now and have answered my own questions on a couple of videos of yours, getting there slowly!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

awesome mate

[@wiedapp]

Better use PVT panels and feed the warmed up water to a buffer tank for central heating. Or use it as a heat source for a heat pump.

[@TheRebelmanone]

Like corrugated aluminum on the back for example, if we could figure out a easy convent way to have cool air running thru the flutes equally, it will cool the panels. Like real cool air from underground.

[@angelusmendez5084]

Awesome! 👏

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@DannyWilliamH]

Very interesting! Thank you! And it does seem to be yet another technology made impractical (for a particular use) by cost, the old thorn in our side. Haha.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

absolutely mate

[@sarchlalaith8836]

Question Would you get more heat from direct light if you scraped the paper backing off the back of the solar cell?

[@ClokworkGremlin]

I bought a set of TEGs and TECs on Amazon, mostly to compare and see if the TEG sellers were ripping me off. (TEGs are supposed to be better optimized for generating electricity, and have a broader safe temperature range than TECs) in a generation test, the TEC actually outperformed the TEG with as close to equal parameters as I could get them, and the TECs I bought cost about 1/5th what the TEGs did, so I'm pretty firmly in the camp that the TEGs you can buy on Amazon are just relabeled TECs.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Years ago i helped with a project that was testing out a combination tripple junction solar, thermoelectric and hot water panels..The tripple junction cell had a layer of GaP over GaAs over Ge on metal on polyimide insulator, on the back was thin film thermoelectrics PbTeSe;Cd/PbTeSe:Bi on an insulated aluminum heatsink. The solar made the bulk of the voltage (3.6V and about 100ma/Cm2) the thermoelectric made 0.2V at about 600mA per Cm2 in full sun. So lots more cirrent from thermoelectric at lower volts, with solar being more volts but less current 360mW per square cm for solar Vs 120mW for themal. 480mw electrical with 1.1W solar power so a bit less than 50% conversion.❤

[@rhoubrickidanan3300]

Hi can I ask for the paper? I would like to add this as a literature review for our on going research

[@atticus2581]

I did the math a few years ago on putting those TEG modules on a wood stove, enough to get 1kw, wouldve been over 1000$ CAD. And it would have covered the entire thing. Would be better off running a boiler on it for a steam turbine.

[@FRESNEL_COOKING_SOLAR_OVENS24]

Best Teg modules are the high temperature 300-400°C. But their cost is £300 for 40w. They can be used on a thick square tube made from aluminium and steel as a rocket stove with giant aluminium heat sinks. Best time to use Teg generator is the winter time, no sun or no wind for alternative power. So the TEG is the next option.

[@Thunderstormworld]

So you decided to look into what I mentioned a while back, I have made a box for the solar panel with peltier modules and aluminium heatsinks but my heatsinks are water cooled which goes to a solar tank resvoir that is connected to sterling motors and radiator then returns to solar panels via powered by a low power solar pump and it's own solar panel. I had a video on KZbin of the system but many "bright sparks" (well they think that they are) says it's inefficient and were rude so I took the video down even though I extracted the more power per square meter of sunshine any attempt made before..

[@peterxyz3541]

YOU!!!!!! YOU! 😂 You’re on the path towards energy independence…..TAKE US ALONG THE RIDE WITH YOU, please, thank you 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 I’ve been pondering leeching the heat from PV panels. I was thinking about using a coolant heat transfer system, use the heat for hot water tank.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I think that is certainly a good way mate

[@patrickmcginnis7]

I've been thinking about this for awhile, and with a large enough temp differential, you don't need the efficiency of the expensive metals in the seebeck. I have a fresnel. So what I would like to do is bond a stippled 12"x12" sheet of copper to the bottom of a 12" tile and below that a folded and stipled sheet of nickel, run the water runoff from my a/c unit under the fins created by the folds. the entire 1 ft. contraption should cost under $35 where 49 40mm TEGS would cost around $390. So for 1/10th the cost, 1/5 of the efficiency, 8-10x temp. diff should get the same resultant voltage for a 1ft. sq. which should be 3V maybe 49 watt hours ... at best 70 cents per Wh ... but it won't melt like the TEG will. Now you would still need 4'x5' setup to generate 1KWh at peak sun. but that's about half of what my A/C unit uses ... so my annual expense of $1400 in elec. for air conditioning not considering connections, batteries, conversion losses, fresnel setup,sun tracker,etc. a DIY setup pays for itself in 2 years and certainly in under 3 yrs. but I do live in a tropical zone, have 20sqft. to spare in full sun near my condenser. Am I wrong to think this?

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

it sounds like an interesting idea mate - the first step is really to test it - or at least test a small panel version and see how it goes

[@bacilluscereus1299]

I'm reminded of the George Cove article on Lowtech Magazine.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

it was a copper oxide cell wasn't it?

[@danchadwick1495]

Make one with ink copper and zinc, for instance. What we're talking about are a thermal couple's in a large array. Iron and constan would be a better arrangement but we work with what we have.

[@johnhenderson9041]

That begs the question of adding water heating to act as a heat sink for the solar panels. My first thought is that both are competing for direct sunlight. Putting the water piping under the panels would do little without costly heat transfer. What about a single extruded pipe along the frame of the solar panel. So it may only add an inch or two to the width of the panels but would allow an easy piping path. It would cool the panel for efficiency and heat water. It the panels use micro inverters would work best as the end panels would have less cooling as the first. I think that would be something to look at ..It may only cool the frame due to the poor thermal conductivity of the glass but with some tweaking better thermal paths to the frame is possible cheaply I imagine

[@C-M-E]

The ideal way and one I go back and forth on is finding the universal conductor that can act as both the thermal conductor and solar cell material in one go while running cooling fins or some other radiative material down the back side so you don't torch the surface of your roof. 😁 I've thought of using a TEG material as a liner for my jet engine projects, but it's always come down to engineering a high heat resin that has lasting power. Thus far I haven't gotten much durability out of my samples despite being able to handle exceptionally high temperature, to the point that I'm running out of ways to get higher heat. There's certainly lots of ways to get the resin to hold together, up until a very discernable threshold where it goes from resisting the temperature quite well to ablating until exhaustion. It'd probably be a fantastic aerospace heat shield so long as you only need it once!

[@robertjenkins5440]

Have you ever heard of the home made material called starlight? Very interesting stuff, only baking type ingrediant's

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

yep - the only problem is finding that material

[@ArjayMartin]

Giant unglazed terracotta flower pots with water and Oasis, or sand, on the roof under the panels (or rather, legitimately, many people have unglazed terracotta tiles, e.g. especially in Spain/Mexico...)... desert fridge cooled panels would rock my socks off. Lol.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

it would certainly work

[@qqqqq11111qqqqq]

I have 2 200wh panels in an indoor window. My question is will the panels still generate heat when not plunged in? with summer coming I wonder if I will need to take them out.

[@unicornadrian1358]

Steven Harris in the US sells stoves with cells built in. Last I saw they produced 100W at 12v while the rocket stove was running.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I looked it up mate as far as I can work out - he sells plain old rocket stoves - well - pretty good plain old rocket stoves lol - but he also sells another product he calls the power pot - it seems to be 5 watts and cost US$100

[@unicornadrian1358]

@@ThinkingandTinkering ah bugger, looks like things have changed. Sorry about that.

[@morpher44]

one advantage to PEG is that it works in the dark or at night. If you are already running a stove or heat source, it makes sense to charge your batteries from the heat source.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

there are advantages - but when you consider costs there are also alternatives

[@gilsaaandsonsconstruction1434]

Would it be possible to use silicone heating strips powered by solar to heat/demist house windows???

[@Aleksandr-Herman]

Solar/Peltier/stirling/flowering sponge - the winner

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

indeed

[@johnrogers1423]

A cheaper way to cool the solar panels is to use a light coloured roofing material. A study in Zurich showed a 2% increase in panel performance.

[@simongross3122]

I was hoping you'd do a video on this topic. Thanks

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

Hope you enjoyed it!

[@josephdupont]

You could use pressurized water instead of 4 whatever pressure you want to get the temperature. You don't burn the things up

[@markbothum4338]

Interesting. This is one of those rare circumstances where some retired or amateur chemist\physicist\engineer working in his garage might stumble across an improvement. I'll get right on that. After the warp drive, but maybe before the cold fusion generator.

[@markbothum4338]

@@billcorbin2851 Cool. And direct specific wavelengths (prism? fresnel?) to PN types per their bell curve of response, ie; visible to PV, infrared to thermo, ultraviolet to my mother-in-law, etc.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lol - it needs a cheaper material is all

[@ZaneofAustin]

would it be possible to float it on some water or something? like using a fog net to gather water, then using the water to cool the peltier, and the sun to heat it? not that it would produce a ton of power, (and i understand you'd evaporate the water real fast) but could that generate power?

[@RyanLebeck-td5ft]

What would a Phase Change Material do for the thermal effects? Nighthawkinlight made a video recently that i found gave me a good think and perhaps some unity between the different operations would yield some strong results. Give it a think mate and see if you feel it would be worth the bother or would sort out nicely. Great video mate!

[@lorenzo42p]

to use those generators you'd need heat sinks on the back of the panels. since the generators will restrict the heat transfer, and since solar panels lose performance as they get hot, I'd bet better off just cooling the solar panels and forget the thermo electric generators. better yet, install water misters and a collection system. cheap and worth while performance gain.

[@JoshuaBaron]

I would love to see you attach one of your own thermoelectric generators onto the back of a solar panel and see what could be done with that.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I have been mulling it over - I have a couple of very much cheaper options as you know

[@smob0]

One thing you didn't touch on is the peltier device is going to have an insulation effect on the panel. If you cover a panel with them, your panel will get hotter and less efficient, unless you add something to cool the whole system, and if cooling is making the system is more efficient, then why is the peltier there? Sure, you get a bit of energy out, but the solar system might have be better off being thermal greased directly to the cooling system without the layer of peltiers in the way. It's not that this could never work, I just find people think sticking an energy harvester on something is free, and often in well tuned systems it has impacts on the system. It's a complicated engineering problem.

[@arechikitsune]

I would use the peltier to cool the reservoir of the cooling system assuming it is water cooling that we are talking about. maybe only connect enough plates to the panel to allow for charging said pump and cooling system. I just remember that the heat created by the solar panels themselves create humidity that gets stuck under them which worsens the situation so something is needed for that.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

good point mate - thank you for making it

[@bilibong0101]

Hi Rob good video, my thoughts are I've already seen a company whom have an enclosed air channel on the back of a solar panel to take away excess heat to use elsewhere, why don't you build a box section behind your panel with a fan pushing or pulling the heat away and at the output section you could even use that excess heat to blow across your peltier device leaving the cold side in the shadow of the solar panel hence making a temp difference because of the box section heat removal properties?????, Sorry can't remember the company whom is making the solar panel with the heat removal box section at the back of them.

[@bilibong0101]

Hi further to my other comments the boxed air channel under the solar panel removes the problem of the panels getting to hot and becoming inefficient and using a fan to move air through said panels and the next panel can just be joined onto the end of the previous unit, so after flowing through a set of panels the heat will be significant

[@joshuafoster8976]

Would a mirrored concentrator and copper tubing pull off enough heat to be useful for combined heating and power? And give the solar output of say Spain not a dimmer British equivalent. (I assume 100w panels is 100w in ideal latitude/sun light/temperature not a usual day)

[@A___Way]

Your earlier video tested white to black wall 5 deg C difference, would that difference allow any production? Very passive aystem

[@WSmith_1984]

From what I recall about a TEG is the the greater the temperature difference the more efficient and effective the device.

[@WSmith_1984]

@@terrafirma9328 Agreed on the main but have to disagree slightly..... efficiency isn't the be all end all, especially when the heat would be lost regardless, we should be looking to capture as much energy transfer as possible.

[@ferminenriquezamorapineda2832]

I have a similar idea for this solar cell and pelter module used together, it's a water distiller, the solar cell shall be directly connected to the pelter module, and one side of the cell must be in contact with water to be distilled, and the other side in contact with the hot side of the pelter module (this is the version where the solar cell is at the bottom of the water tank and sunlight passes through water), then the vapour is condensed in the other side of the peltier-solar cell sandwich. The other version is in where the solar cell is at the top of the tank and water is heated below, and pelter module hot side is in contact with water at the bottom but not necessarily directly with the solar panel

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

you still have the problem of cost mate

[@Imaboss8ball]

I wonder if a seebeck effect generator made from standard metals bonded using electroplating would be efficient/cheap enough to be useful.

[@richardteychenne3950]

Great thought provoker, just as an idea as I haven't had the opportunity to try. The world seems to be overflowing with second-hand computer bits including tons of virtually zero cost fans. Would having some running off the power from the solar output to blow cool the back of the panel when the panel is overheating actually result in a net gain in the useful energy output? Have you seen any research in this area?

[@msamour]

Hi thanks for sharing the knowledge on the thermoelectric devices. With the coming on the radioactive diamond batteries, I think we should hold off on trying to use expensive materials to generate power. But, it could be too good to be true based on the specs. I doubt the government and the corporation would allow us plebs to have nearly unlimited power. As for children playing, one should be ever apologize for that. The sound of summer should always be children playing in the distance. We need those little people around to remind us why we are trying to improve our world.

[@antonia4722]

There must be a way of using the absorbed heat from the panels to heat water without the need to generate extra electricity. A snaked copper pipe fixed to the rear of the panel for example with water..(or even oil?). 6mm copper pipe? There may even be a small Thermo-cyclic effect within the pipe for circulation? Just a thought. Still loving your videos Robert!! :o) xx

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

yep - that would work

[@ur_quainmaster7901]

I have a large solar array.... I've been considering a water cooling system for my panels and using peltiers to just run the pump. The problem (several really) I have is the panels are actually split into 4 different arrays, 2 ground mount, 2 roof mount. So realistically I'd need 4 pumps, 4 radiators or ground loops or other way of dissipating heat. That's getting pretty expensive, as I'd also need 2 manifolds before and after the panels otherwise the water will heat soak and be unable to cool anything if I just ran one line across 350 sq ft of panel. Maybe that thinking is wrong, and if the heat is constantly dumped one 1/4" line would work.... but I don't think so. I might've tried that for one array... but with four to deal with I am thinking of other ways... like rain capture and thermostat controlled sprinklers maybe. The roof mounted ones get especially hot, so maybe I only do those.... hm

[@Nuts-Bolts]

Thinks... At 65°C a photovoltaic can loose about 2% efficiency. Paraffin wax melts at about 50°C and so a slab could be used as a 'phase change material' to keep panel at no more than 50°C. At dusk, bring slab indoors to radiate its latent heat upon solidifying again. Probable more practical in dry deserts which get chilly at night.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

probably

[@strawman9410]

I've seen Seebeck in series on a stove with a square aluminium tube on the other side joined with thermal paste and flowing water in the tube to power a device.

[@JoshuaBaron]

Is that online somewhere? Can you post a link to that?

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

makes sense

[@strawman9410]

@@JoshuaBaron it's been a long time ago I wouldn't remember the title

[@j.christie2594]

👏🙌👏👏. Great Sir... Educating..

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@ryanjamesloyd6733]

Cool :) As an aside I had a thought on solar panel cooling the other day- why don't they just put a bit of plastic over top of them and run water across the surface between the panel and the plastic? seems like you could get Both a lens effect for more light concentration And cooling at the same time. I'm sure if that worked somebody would have done it already, but I can't think of why it Wouldn't work beyond maybe running a pump would take too much energy to be worth it.

[@annebeignatborde1832]

I've seen videos on making solar water heaters using black PVC pipe wound in a circle and placed under glass. They usually use the type of small solar pumps used for a small fountain. I suppose the power of the pump needed depends on how much surface area of solar panels being used but we're talking about trickling the water through.

[@jimmycorkhill1390]

It is definitely viable in my opinion, also installing a water jacket to the rear. It is the prolonged service issues unless one is a tinkerer I think are the challenges. I run several pumps and lots of other stuff from my solar, a pump on say a 140 euro 330W panel wouldnt be a problem. Best wishes.

[@jimmycorkhill1390]

@@annebeignatborde1832 Sergiy Yurko is an excellent inventor/maker of thermal solar stuff. He also focuses on cost per kWh. Best wishes.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I wouldn't be too sure of the idea - if it worked someone else would have done it !

[@jimmycorkhill1390]

@@ThinkingandTinkering Sergiy Yurko, you would have to trawl through his many videos to find it. It didnt perform as good as his different methods but was one of the simplest. There was a manufacturer a few years back that sold combined thermal water photovoltaic panels, they were pricey from what I recall. Those latex black water bags with pluming integral for solar showers or pool heaters my be an option. My panels get too hot to touch on the underside of the glass, cannot remember the readings I took. This would nicely preheat hot water, immersion off the panels to lift it to optimum. My panels give me my hot water much of the year as well as my electric all of the year. Best wishes..

[@michaelmills2077]

I like the idea of capturing waste heat. Water absorbs heat well. Is there any way to run a hose through the backside to absorb the heat on the way to a water heater?

[@TheBaconWizard]

A copper pipe painted black is great for capturing heat, if it was square-section you could use some thermal paste to attach it.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I would think so mate - but it might need a little looking into

[@awesomedee5421]

What about the other way around. Instead of trying to generate power from the heat, using the power generated by the panels to run the cooler, and the question is will it cool the panel enough to increase panel output to offset the energy required to run the cooler?...thus increasing the efficiency of panel overall output.

[@daviddouglas4200]

Bob, how about passing water over the back, say in a pipe to remove heat. The heated water could be saved in a tank for washing up............ :-)

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

nice mate - cheap and effective - always the best idea in my book

[@peppernickelly]

Installing aluminum heatsinks on the back of the solar panel would most likely provide more watts per dollar and higher amount of power vs the cost of peltier.

[@JKeedzProject]

Hye sir,sorry for my bad english, thankyou for your information,i want to ask you….can thermoelectric generator run a solar charge controller,and connect to motorcycle battery for charge iphone(phone)?

[@strongforce8466]

Interesting, maybe in a few years even the cheapest of these will be affordable to buy at bulk and hopefully the efficiency will have improved aswell, it makes me think of some ad I saw.. some company is doing solar panel with water cooling, or more like gathering the heat to heat up warm water for a house, clever stuff and it probably helps boosts the panel efficiency as well

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

Great point!

[@Kingtrollface259]

They are about 25% efficient and they have to mine cobalt to make them ,not so green but handy non the less

[@morpher44]

You could have water-cooled solar panels to boost their efficiency. The key would be to move the water with the smallest amount of power you can get away with like a tiny lower wattage pump run by a smaller solar panel near the big one being cooled.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

for sure mate

[@danielplumley379]

All you’d need to do is create a system of ram pumps (which use no electricity at all) and that should do it!

[@you-know-who.]

I think maybe some kind of water jacket under the pannel and using the hot water to run a shower would be the cheapest possible way to do it

[@MarcMallary]

I would cool the back of the solar panel with water tubes and circulate it through a water sourced heat pump, that could heat domestic hot water, or a building, or a thermal storage mass.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

for sure mate

[@silverpc4611]

how about using the TEG to cool the solar panel?

[@Ryan-el3zc]

Suppose I might be a bit late to the party but I thought I'd put my two cents in. When solar panels get hot they loose efficiency. To remedy that you could stick a heat sink on the back and let the wind blow through it. Not covering it. Maybe an 80mm square. With that in place wouldn't it be a good spot for a couple TEGs? Most solar panels have a fair bit of glass that can conduct heat pretty well. I'd like to toss your idea in the bin and make something much cheaper as well as a lot simpler.

[@austinbambooinc2507]

I'm curious if you have done any work with rectennae solar panels? I'm wondering if an infrared version could be made with carbonized bamboo or coconut fiber? Also, what would be an easy way to rectify it?

[@RoborobsComputers]

What about using a TEC as a way to actually cool the back of your solar panel?

[@gideonlapidus8996]

Makes a lot of sense

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@TheAndreasMustola]

How about creating a thermo electric converter with graphite or other Seebeck coefficient materials and place it behind the solarpanel? Should at least be cheap. A solar panel is often made of aluminium so placing an isolation on the back and then another sheet of aluminium to get some Seebeck. Or maybe a heat sink that is made of aluminium that is in rain water that fills up then it rains to keep the panel cool. That would keep the panel a bit cooler and produce some Seebeck between the warm aluminium side and the cold aluminium heatsink side.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

that is certainly the answer - the problem is cost really

[@chrisgriffiths2533]

More Great Knowledge.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@spidermike3]

What about a water pipe on the back of the panels, which will cool the panels down to help with keeping the power output up.

[@LoremIpsum1970]

Hi, have you ever looked at using an ultrasonic mist generator as an evaporative cooler? Asking for a friend 😊

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

no I haven't - but I will now lol

[@donaldburkhard7932]

Use it on concentrated PV?

[@rblom1632]

Why not put two cooling ribs on a peltier element. One side in the water and one side in the air. As there is allmost alway a temperture difference, there is allmost allways power. The charm of this system is that it also works when there is no sun or wind. No moving parts, so maybe it could last very long?

[@AtlasReburdened]

I think there may be some small merit behind the idea if the heat from the panel can be collected and transported to a single thermoelectric generator, but this would get into fluid based cooling loops and at that point it would be much more sensible to simply use this as a pre heating state for a nearby solar thermal>steam generation setup instead of putting a thermally resistive element like a seebeck generator in the way. In the end, there's just not a whole lot that can be done with the low enthalpy energy regime of temperatures under 100C other than as a supplementary heating state for a schema that utilizes the higher enthalpy energies of 100C+ temperatures, which are obviously better suited for steam generation. I suppose someone could make a hermetically sealed "steam" generator setup with a solvent that boils just above room temps as the working fluid, but I hardly see the point when there's the option to just cool the panels with cool water, and use the extra power from the panel's gained efficiency to pump the now warm water into a solar concentrator schema to make superheated steam for generation of usable power without hilariously impractical upfront costs.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I think you final point sums it up mate

[@williamdraper1679]

I've worked with alkalai metal thermal conversion. Like sodium for example. Tech is verified but we were having issues bringing the cost down. Maybe a fresh look at it with younger eyes might be fruitful, just a thought..

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

that does sound interesting mate

[@williamdraper1679]

@@ThinkingandTinkering look up AMTEC - alkalai metal thermal to electric conversion. Its an older tech, but maybe with the newer advances in materials it could be done with less engineering. The basic concept "can get" about 20-40 percent conversion efficiency. Just add heat, makes electricity. We were developing for NASA, but there are issues with longevity of the device. We get a lot of ion creep from the system. Getting the ceramics correct is also tricky, the matrix has to be precise.

[@rw-xf4cb]

My thoughts were to wet back the solar panel but I believe a solar panel company is looking at the same idea. Would turn your solar panel into a solar hot water system.......

[@codedesigns9284]

The Seebek and Pelletier devices are just PNP devices, similar in the manufacturing process with Phosphorus and Boron - I agree that it would increase the price a lot by buying each device separately; however, what if the solar panel/Pelletier(or seebek) were manufactured together with the solar panel in a layered way (similar to the concept of how a CPU is developed)? Would this not drastically reduce the cost? This concept has been on my mind for years since initially learning how CPU’s were made, and applying either effect to it. Love to hear your thoughts on this Robert, excellent video! 😊 (I hope I worded this properly)

[@bacilluscereus1299]

That sounds perfect.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I think you are spot on mate - if the problem is basically cost then anything that reduces that would be an advantage and scale in manufacturing would certainly bring that down

[@dav1dbone]

Pity you couldn't print your own teg panel using n and p type materials, using the laser cutter, similar to how you did the printed capacitor, this time having alternating np junctions.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

yeah it is a pity

[@ghoumamohamed]

What if we use the thermo electric generator in car, like the hot side in exhaust and cold side with radiator, is that going to get efficient power generated ?

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

they are used mate - but the cooling schema is pretty extensive and in a high end car the proportion of cost isn't so important - but they are never going to be more than 5-8% efficient as that is the limit of the core device

[@kevinpersinger7957]

T.E.G. used on a furnace or water heater? Seems like a logical use, if you are using NG/LPG as a energy heat source...

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

indeed

[@ThomasAndersonbsf]

cost value you are quoting then I guess means my idea of a water cooling system that takes the heated water from the solar panel and using it as a hot water heater source is still the best option I guess :)

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I would think so - I like it any way

[@ThomasAndersonbsf]

actually we can't hope you do an insert toward the end of the voltage readout since it is cut off by the video camera's limited field of view being less that infinite ;)

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lol - it doesn't really matter the much mate - I used an off the shelf TEG - so pretty much the performance characteristics are well known

[@ne1cup]

I see your Stirling and think it more efficient for this application?

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

to be honest I would think so

[@seancole7087]

Could these be used to convert hot water into electricity? I have a solar hot water system that will be making a ton of hot water that will currently go to waste.

[@bokunochannel84207]

old car radiator and 12watts fish tank pump is good enough for me.

[@Buongona]

I'm gonna like this just because you tried before even watching this...

[@SinfulTed]

Only way heat/energy reclamation on solar would work would be a refrigerant system across the solar array to pull the heat away to a separate unit. At which point it would be better to just power a steam turbine with that heat. The cost to gain the efficiency on the panels aswell as separate generation still may not be worth it tho in comparison to just adding more panels

[@SinfulTed]

@@terrafirma9328 I spose in a sort of way one could get the best of both worlds as panels lose efficiency as they heat up, so if your pulling the heat away from them and storing it....

[@eaglegp7]

I swear this guy is the professor on Gilligan's Island

[@simongross3122]

If thermo-electricity is too expensive, how about just using cooling to bring down the temperature of the PV cells down to reduce the degradation in efficiency? Wouldn't even need to use seebeck effect - probably some sort of water-cooling underneath would do the job.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

yes it would

[@philipvecchio3292]

There are PVT (photovoltaic/thermal) panels with a cooling loop that provides both hot water and electricity. Theoretically, 2/3 of the power generated goes into hot water, and it also boosts the PV generation. I really want to build a Sterling engine that would be affordable that could run off of both solar thermal and wood heat. That would allow some energy storage thermally. Where I live in New York, There's a lot of people who heat with wood. In an era with $100 gasoline engines, they should be possible to make it an expensive Sterling engine.

[@Noswiatel]

I'm all up for converting a 4 stroke into a Stirling

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I am thinking about doing that mate

[@Noswiatel]

@@ThinkingandTinkering I've seen only one person perform that on KZbin (also, only partially), and they used a V-engine that only needed to be capped off (it had a regenerator already). On the other side of things, there's one very cool explanation on how to convert a 2-stroke into a steam engine by attaching a check valve at where the spark plug goes, and also a mechanical "switch" to the piston to open up the valve when the piston is in the proper position. I don't know the efficiency though.

[@fireballloadout]

Here's me be a weird idea but I noticed the Sterling engine in the video, could you take the heat from the solar panels and use that to run the sterling engine?

[@TimeSurfer206]

Yes, but that itty-bitty thing won't produce as much power.

[@htmagic]

RMS, I had this idea 10 years ago. But the cost of the TEGs and the low efficiency did not make it economically attractive. There is a new energy harvester from waste heat that is cheaper to produce than the TEGs and may be more effective.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

what is it mate?

[@MrMic-kp3ww]

Generate hot water and cool the solar panels this way. This would be my first thought... might be easier. ;)

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

it's a good thought

[@williamarmstrong7199]

Ok So this solid state units do not work. How about thin walled copper tubing in a fluid (silicone oil?) On the back of the solar panel and pump 50/50 water / antifreeze -anti boil fluid through it to cool the panel and heat a hot water cylinder?

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

no mate - they do work well to a degree - it's more that they are just expensive - very expensive for not that much generation - I like your idea it's cheap and effective and for me that is always the win

[@JoeyBlogs007]

Might be better to find a way to improve the panel cooling. Like a 3D backing surface to increase the surface area on the underside of the pane. Or other means.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lots of folks suggesting water cooling

[@JoeyBlogs007]

@@ThinkingandTinkering Yeah I thought of that also. I was thinking an earth heat pump water recirculation system. i.e. that uses the ground's more stable temperature to circulate cool water. Otherwise a well shaded open air heat exchanger linked up to the water circulation pipe, that flows to the back of the panels.