Harvesting Energy by Solar Thermo-Electric Generation in Tropical Regions

Thermos-electric generation (TEG) is a promising technique that transforms heat into electric energy even it has low conservation efficiency. In this work. The finite element method (FEM) has been used to determine the temperature distribution in the soil also a parameter that already used to present the effectiveness of the TEG was obtained. The temperature of the soil surface and temperature at any depth was obtained together with the temperature of a plate located above the TEG device which served as a hot source. The developed sum of the square of the temperature difference between the plate and different depths multiplying by the time interval of the soil is obtained and the maximum sum is searched for to see at which time and depth should the TEG be fixed to obtain the maximum output from the TEG device. From the result of this work, it is found that the maximum sum occurred in May and at depth of 0.3 m, and also a verified program has been built and tested and can be used successfully in other regions by changing latitude, weather conditions, and soil properties.