A New Design of a Geothermal Thermoelectric Generator System for Geothermal Heat Recovery

The current paper shows the analytical study of a new design of a geothermal thermoeletric generator system (GTEG). Many developments have been made in the global energy sector in the last few decades, but fossils fuels remained dominant and hold 78.5% global energy demand and are accountable for 75% of global CO2 emissions. Furthermore, geothermal energy has advantages compared to others of weather independence. It has been known and recommended that; the thermoelectric module is a potential technology advancement to accelerate the developments in geothermal power. This study work presents the analytical modelling of the geothermal thermoelectric generator system (GTEG) to study the effect of heat sink, heat pipe, electrical load resistance, and number of thermoelements, to achieve the possible maximum output electrical power. The maximum output power can be reached by optimizing the mentioned parameters where a lower value of thermal resistance of the heat exchangers are needed. Then, the proposed design of the GTEG system is implemented in a location where the geothermal temperature is 157C and 17C is the ambient temperature. As a result, and by using natural convection heat sink, the optimum output power density obtained from the GTEG system is 0.235W/cm2.