Light-Concentration Characteristic of Water Lens and its Application to Thermoelectric Generation

Abstract

A water lens was used to concentrate sunlight on the surface of a thermoelectric (TE) module in order to heat it. The shape of this water lens could be flexibly adjusted to compensate for solar altitude changes. The light condensed by the water lens produced a large energy distribution on the top of the module. In this study, we simulated the power generation properties when the top of the module was heated by light with a certain condensing distribution. The simulation results revealed that the energy distribution had little effect on the TE generation if the solar light was effectively condensed on a plate with a condensing width of a few millimeters.