Control of DC-DC power conversion system for thermoelectric generator application

Abstract

Today, given the rising concerns pertaining environmental issues, energy costs and scarcity of non-renewable resources, there is greater emphasis on waste heat recovery research. Waste heat recovery research is done extensively for marine application given its significance in greenhouse gas contribution and use as transport. While efficiency of a marine engine is low, with 25% lost as waste heat. Waste heat is usually reused for thermal instead of electrical energy. As there are many places within a marine engine suitable for heat recovery, Thermoelectric Generators (TEG) have potential for research here. TEG extract electrical energy from temperature difference between 2 plates. Power converters are used to prevent load mismatch between these generators and the load. These power converters can be controlled using C2000 microcontrollers to obtain maximum power through Maximum Power Point Tracking algorithms. Z. C. Lim developed 2 Single-Ended Primary Inductor Converters (SEPIC), software to control and display outputs from these converters as well as tested 2 TEGs. In this project, 2 more similar SEPIC boards were developed. Existing software was expanded to cater to 4 units of SEPIC and the SEPIC boards were tested with 10 TEGs. The project aims to develop these for commercialisation in the future.