Photovoltaic (PV) and thermo-electric energy harvesters for charging applications

doi:10.1016/j.mejo.2019.104685

Microelectronics Journal

Volume 96, February 2020, 104685

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mejo.2019.104685 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
This paper focuses on performance analysis of a solar PV and a thermoelectric generator for mobile phone applications.
•
Present the background theory of Solar PV and Thermo-electric energy harvester and discuss the experimental results.
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Simulink model of solar PV was built to generate the I-V/P-V curve and the results are compared with experimental values.

Abstract

Significant technical progress is currently ongoing in the field of energy harvesting technologies. This paper presents a study of both photovoltaic (PV) and thermo-electric energy harvesting techniques in the context of mobile phone applications. The paper includes performance analysis of a macro scale PV module and a thermo-electric generator (investigated under different conditions), together with a single diode electrical equivalent circuit model of the solar PV developed using MATLAB/Simulink. Additionally experimental results of the PV module are verified via simulation. To complete the study a PV module is integrated with a DC/DC adjustable converter and solar charge controller (3A CMTP02) to charge a smart mobile phone in order to assimilate charging capacity and feasibility of macro scale energy harvesting devices.

Graphical abstract

Section snippets

Introduction and review

There has been a growing in interest in energy harvesting technology over the last few years, due in the main to an increased demand requirement for the use of sustainable power supplies in emerging technologies. For example in the realm of Internet of Things (IoT) [1], embedded systems [2], environmental monitoring [3], wireless sensor networks (WSNs), smart cities [4], wearable and portable electronics [5] to name a few. Electrical energy can be obtained via energy harvesting technology from

PV and thermo-electric energy harvesters

To undertake modeling and analysis it is necessary to create a mathematical model that accurately describe the non-linear I–V and P–V characteristics of solar PV module. Many models exhibit the characteristics of solar cells however in apply the commonly utilized models are the single diode equivalent circuit model (SDM), the double diode equivalent circuit model (DDM) and the triple diode equivalent circuit model. The SDM model is considered in this paper due to its simplicity and accuracy in

Experimental set up

In this research we have demonstrated a hybrid energy harvester for charging a mobile phone. Fig. 3 shows the block diagram model of the hybrid energy harvester which consists of two types of energy harvesters including solar PV and thermoelectric, all including the power electronics circuitry. The following section discusses the characteristics and the performance of the solar and thermoelectric energy harvester.

Application overview

The complete experimental setup to charge the smart phone is shown in Fig. 7. It can be seen from the figure that a portable solar module is integrated with DC/DC adjustable converter and CMTP02 3A solar charge controller. The output of the charge controller is connected with the USB buck controller which charges the smart phone Xiaomi Redmi Note 2. The PV output current ( $I_{1}$ ) and voltage ( $V_{1}$ ) and, the charge controller output current ( $I_{2}$ ) and voltage ( $V_{2}$ ) have been measured as shown in Fig. 8

Conclusions

This paper presented two energy harvesters namely thermoelectric and solar PV and, analysed their performances for charging applications. There is no minimum amount of current requirement to charge a battery, mobile phone or tablet but the voltage should be nearly 4.5 V to 5 V. However, the speed of charging will depend on the current level and it will take longer period to charge it fully if the current level is very low. Charging mobile phone from laptop/computer through the USB2.0 port

CRediT authorship contribution statement

C.R. Saha: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Validation, Investigation, Methodology, Conceptualization. M.N. Huda: Writing - original draft, Data curation. A. Mumtaz: Writing - review & editing. A. Debnath: Formal analysis, Software. S. Thomas: Data curation. R. Jinks: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.

Acknowledgements

There was no funding of this work.

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View full text

Photovoltaic (PV) and thermo-electric energy harvesters for charging applications

Highlights

Abstract

Graphical abstract

Section snippets

Introduction and review

PV and thermo-electric energy harvesters

Experimental set up

Application overview

Conclusions

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Acknowledgements

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Sens. Actuators Phys.

Sens. Actuators Phys.

Nano Energy

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WILDSENSING: design and deployment of a sustainable sensor network for wildlife monitoring

ACM Trans. Sens. Netw. TOSN

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IEEE Sens. J.

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Energy harvesting with microbial fuel cell and power management

IEEE Trans. Power Electron.

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IEEE Trans. Power Electron.