Design of a battery charging system fed by thermoelectric generator panels using MPPT techniques

Thermal energy is a renewable energy source to generate electrical energy that is not fully developed. One device that converts thermal energy into electrical power is a thermoelectric generator (TEG). TEGs are available as modules of various sizes and voltage levels. This paper is about the design of a battery charging system powered by a TEG panel. The TEG panel is implemented using 150 TEG modules interconnected in series and parallel. Its power is transferred to a battery using two stages of DC/DC converters. The 1^st stage is a Lou converter that is used for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) by a referenced perturb and observe (referenced P&O) algorithm. The 2^nd stage is a bidirectional converter based on buck-boost modes of operation. The system is used to charge a 9 V 1.2 Ah battery. The proposed MPPT algorithm’s performance is compared with a traditional P&O algorithm. The TEG panel provided 27.5 W at a ΔT of 30 ⁰C. The designed system is simulated in MATLAB SIMULINK.