Design and investigation of the solar-thermoelectric energy harvesting system at asphalt pavements road

Abstract

Renewable energy is the generation of power from natural resources that plays an essential part in our society and economy as it helps reduce emissions for more sustainable future. Therefore, this project aims to analyse two energy harvesting technology, photovoltaic (PV) panels and thermoelectric generators (TEG), in terms of charging and voltage generated from waste heat in a road environment. H-shape heat sinks passive cooling element at subterranean level was implemented to achieve a maximum temperature difference of 15°C for TEG. The top plate, the hot side of TEG, can obtain a maximum of 53°C with a cold side of TEG only increased to 4°C from its initial temperature. Three TEGs connected in series able to charge 5F supercapacitors within 3.5 h, while 3V rated PV solar panel, acquired 15 min to charge the supercapacitor fully. Integrated PV and TEG were evaluated regarding the connection configuration of both energy harvesters into a single system. Series connection of the integrated system takes 29 min to fully charged the supercapacitor where all the results are saved into a microSD card and easily read in Excel. This project provides new insight into the charging performance of the two combinations of energy harvesting technology.

KEYWORDS:

• Road thermoelectric energy harvesting
• pavement harvesting
• subterranean cooling
• thermoelectric application
• PV-TEG

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka [grant number PJP/2022/FKEKK/S01864].