Machineless solar power plants. Scheme, description

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RADIO ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
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Machineless solar power plants. Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering

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Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering / Alternative energy sources

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In machineless solar power plants, the energy of solar radiation is directly converted into electrical energy, without an intermediate transition to mechanical energy. For direct conversion, turbines and power generators are not needed.

Thermoelectric converters

The direct conversion of the thermal energy of solar radiation into electricity is based on the Seebeck effect, discovered in 1821. If two conductors of different chemical composition are soldered at the ends and the junctions are placed in media with different temperatures, then a thermo-EMF arises between them:

where T₁ - absolute temperature of the hot junction, T₂ is the absolute temperature of the cold junction, and is the proportionality factor.

A current J arises in the conductor circuit, and the hot junction absorbs heat from a heated source in an amount per second and the cold junction gives off heat to the low-temperature body in the amount . The difference between the supplied and removed heat is the second work of the current

, W.

The ratio of work to heat input is the thermal efficiency of the conversion process

(3.1)

Thus, the efficiency of an ideal thermoelectric converter coincides with the thermal efficiency of the Carnot cycle and is completely determined by the absolute temperatures of the hot and cold junctions. In real converters, irreversible losses occur due to the electrical resistance of conductors, their thermal conductivity and thermal resistance to heat exchange of junctions with the environment. Therefore, the actual efficiency of the installation is equal to

(3.2)

where - relative electrical efficiency of the converter (so named by analogy with the relative internal efficiency of the turbine, taking into account irreversible losses in throttling).

When using metal thermoelectrodes, the efficiency of thermoelectric converters is very low - it does not exceed hundredths of a percent. In 1929, A.F. Ioffe showed that the use of semiconductors gives a significant effect - the efficiency increases to a value of the order of 10%. In modern thermoelectric generators, semiconductor thermoelements, in which "hot" junctions are heated by sunlight, are connected in series. Generators of this kind are used as autonomous sources of electricity for low-power consumers - lighthouses, marine signal buoys, etc.

Author: Labeish V.G.

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