Unit-4  Reliable: Thermoelectric energy conversion is a reliable way to generate electricity from

thermal energy or solar heat.

THERMO-ELECTRICAL AND THERMIONIC CONVERSIONS
However, thermoelectric conversion has low thermal efficiency. Thermionic converters can
also have limited efficiency due to space charge buildup between the electrodes.
THERMO-ELECTRICAL CONVERSIONS
Where we use the thermoelectric and thermionic conversion?
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Thermoelectric and thermionic energy conversions are used in a variety of applications,
What is thermoelectric and thermionic conversion? including:

 Power plants and factories: Thermoelectric generators can convert waste heat into
Thermoelectric and thermionic conversions are both systems that convert heat into electricity electricity.
without moving parts:  Automobiles: Automotive thermoelectric generators (ATGs) can increase fuel efficiency.
 Thermoelectric conversion  Space: Thermionic energy conversion (TEC) is used in space nuclear power supply systems.
Based on the Seebeck, Peltier, and Thomson effects, thermoelectric systems have  Concentrated solar energy: TEC is used for concentrating solar power.
applications in waste heat recovery and remote areas. However, they have low thermal
 Metallurgical processes: TEC is used in metallurgical processes.
efficiency.
 Electronics and communications: Thermionic emission is used as a source of electrons in
 Thermionic energy conversion (TEC)
conventional electron tubes, such as television picture tubes.
Uses thermionic emission, which is the process of spontaneously ejecting electrons from a
TEC uses thermionic emission, which is the process of electrons being ejected from a hot
hot surface. The electrons are then collected by a colder surface, called the anode. TECs surface and collected by a colder surface.
have applications in space, concentrated solar energy conversion, nuclear sectors, and
more. However, they have yet to be consistently realized in a practical manner for large- Thermoelectric conversion is a general term of the phenomena in which heat is generated from
scale deployment. electricity, or vice versa, due to the characteristics of certain substances. The substances
(conductors or semiconductors) that cause such phenomena are called thermoelectric conversion
Why should we use thermoelectric and thermionic conversion?
materials.

They have several advantages, including: Thermionic energy conversion (TEC) is the direct conversion of heat into electricity by the
 Silent operation: They don't have moving parts, so they operate silently. mechanism of thermionic emission, the spontaneous ejection of hot electrons from a surface.
 Low maintenance: They require little maintenance.
 Compact size: They are compact.
 Scalability: They can be scaled up and down.
 Environmentally friendly: They don't contain chemical products and can use waste heat as
an energy source.
Here are some other advantages of thermoelectric and thermionic conversion systems:

 Potential applications: They can be used in remote areas and for waste heat recovery.
Fig. 4.1(a)Working Diagram of Thermoelectric Power Generator
Fig. 4.1 (b) Working Diagram of Thermoelectric Power Generator
Fig. 4.1 (c) Working Diagram of Thermoelectric Power Generator Fig. 4.1 (d)Working Diagram of Thermoelectric Power Generator
 Fig. 4.2 Working Diagram of Thermionic Power Generator

Thermo-electrical and thermionic Conversions

Fig. 4.3 Diagram for Seeback Effect

Fig. 4.4 Diagram for Peltier Effect

  Low environmental impact
Wind turbines don't pollute the air or water, and they don't require water for cooling.
 Economic benefits
Wind energy can help reduce utility bills, and communities can receive tax credits and
financial incentives.
 Job creation
Wind energy can create jobs.
WIND ENERGY
 Land use
4.4INTRODUCTION
Wind turbines can be built on open land, mountain ridges, or offshore, and they take up
minimal space. Farmers and ranchers can lease their land to wind farms and continue to
What is wind energy?
use it to grow crops or raise livestock.

Wind energy is a renewable energy source that uses wind to generate electricity:  End-of-life
Wind plants can be almost completely dismantled and recycled, and the land can be
 How it works returned to its original state
Wind turbines use blades to collect wind's kinetic energy, which causes the blades to
turn. The blades are connected to a drive shaft that turns an electric generator, producing Where we use wind energy?
electricity.
Wind energy can be used in many ways, including:
 Benefits
 Electricity generation: Wind turbines convert wind's kinetic energy into mechanical
Wind energy is clean, efficient, and sustainable:
energy, which is then converted into electricity. Wind turbines can be installed on land or
 Clean: Wind turbines don't produce greenhouse gas emissions. at sea, and can be owned and operated by utility companies.
 Efficient: Wind turbines are becoming more efficient.  Water pumping: Wind pumps can be used to extract water from the ground for drinking
 Sustainable: Wind energy is inexhaustible and has a low water-consumption footprint. water or irrigation. A single wind pump can pump up to 600 liters per hour, which is
Where it's used enough to meet the needs of a small farm.
The windiest parts of most countries are offshore, so wind farms are often built out at  Renewable hydrogen production: Wind energy can be used to produce the electrical
sea. Taller towers can capture more energy and generate more electricity because wind current needed to produce renewable hydrogen, which can be used to make synthetic
speed increases with height fuels.
.
Why should we use wind energy?  Sports: Wind energy is used in sports like windsurfing, kite boarding, and land surfing.
 Sailing: Wind energy has been used for sailing for a long time.
Wind energy is a clean, renewable energy source with many benefits, including:
 Milling grain: Windmills have been used to mill grain for a long time.
 Low carbon emissions
Wind energy is clean, inexhaustible, and cheap, and it has a low impact on the
Wind energy doesn't release carbon emissions, and can help reduce the amount of
environment.
electricity generated from fossil fuels.
 kW) are connected together to generate large amounts of power. Apart from the constraints
resulting from the number of turbines, any site selection should think over the technical,
Wind power or wind energy is the use of wind to provide mechanical power through wind
economic, social, environmental and political aspects.
turbines to turn electric generators for electrical power. Wind power is a
popular sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller impact on the 1. Technical Considerations: Many technical factors affect the decision making on site
environment compared to burning fossil fuels. selection including wind speed, land topography and geology, grid structure and distance
and turbine size. These technical factors must be understood in order to give pair-wise
4.4.2 Wind power and its sourcesSources
scores to sub-factors.
Wind turbines, like windmills, are mounted on a tower to capture the most energy. At 100 feet
(30 meters) or more aboveground, they can take advantage of the faster and less turbulent wind. 2. Wind Speed: The viability of wind power in a given site depends on having sufficient wind speed
Turbines catch the wind's energy with their propeller-like blades. Usually, two or three blades available at the height at which the turbine is to be installed. Any choice of wind turbine design must
are mounted on a shaft to form a rotor. be based on the average wind velocity at the selected wind turbine construction site.

A blade acts much like an airplane wing. When the wind blows, a pocket of low-pressure air 3. Land topography and geology: Wind farms typically need large lands. Topography and prevailing
forms on the downwind side of the blade. The low-pressure air pocket then pulls the blade wind conditions determine turbine placement and spacing within a wind farm. In flat areas where
toward it, causing the rotor to turn. This is called lift. The force of the lift is actually much there is nothing to interfere with wind flow, at least 2600-6000 m2/MW may be required. Wind

stronger than the wind's force against the front side of the blade, which is called drag. The turbines are usually sited on farms that have slope smaller than 10-20%.

combination of lift and drag causes the rotor to spin like a propeller, and the turning shaft spins a
generator to make electricity. 4. Grid structure and distance: The connection of wind turbines to an electricity grid can potentially
affect reliability of supply and power quality, due to the unpredictable fluctuations in wind power
4.5 Site selection
output.

Four types of site are considered suitable. These are :

5. Turbine size: Required height for the installation of turbine above ground is one of the important
 Plane land sites
factors that affect the annual energy generation. [10] Turbine size is related with the energy output,
 Hill tops sites because the bigger the turbine size is, the more wind it is exposed to.

 Sea- shore sites 4.6 Criterion

 Off-shore shallow water sites.  Wind turbine selection based on a single criterion, energy production capacity, and

Although wind power is a never ending green resource, assessment of environmental risks and particle swarm optimization algorithm was used as the underlying optimization

impacts- which comprise the backbone of environmental policy- in the context of specific algorithm.

projects or sites often are necessary to explicate and weigh the environmental trade-offs that are  Algorithmic and computational complexities associated with particle swarm
involved. In the case of wind farms, a number of turbines (ranging from about 250 kW to 750 optimization, along with the accuracy of the decision process due to a single criterion.
 Optimization of cost of energy as the turbine selection criterion, while assuming different where:
turbine types.
 T is the thrust
 One optimization criterion, namely, minimum cost of energy was considered which was
 is the density of air (or other medium)
modeled as function of expected annual energy output, capacity factor, and cost of
energy.  A is the area of the rotor disc

 In order to develop the two-level fuzzy logic model for the underlying problem, the upper  P is power

and lower limits for each decision criteria were found using the data collected for the A device which converts the translational energy of the fluid into rotational energy of the
concerned site. Using these bounds and the data from the sites, fuzzy membership values axis or vice versa is called a Rankine disk actuator. The real life implementations of such
for each criterion are computed and aggregated in form of an overall decision function devices are e.g. marine and aviation propellers, windmills, helicopter rotors, centrifugal
according to the proposed approach. pumps, wind turbines, turbochargers and chemical agitators.

 MCDM is a technique used in situations requiring decisions while considering multiple 4.8 Classification of rotors
and “conflicting” decision criteria. Conflicting criteria are those criteria which negatively
impact each other, i.e., improving the quality of one criterion degrades the quality of Starting from classical horizontal axis rotors (old windmills), a lot of types of wind rotors
were developed as time went on, some of them were excellent. Indeed the first windmills
other(s).
developed in Mesopotamia were built with vertical axis, mounting, radially, some vertical
4.7 Momentum theory
flags. After some centuries and thanks to the deep experience gained, man optimized the
Momentum theory or disk actuator theory is a theory describing a mathematical model of an rotor reaching excellent results such as the Dutch and Greek windmills.
ideal actuator disk, such as a propeller or helicopter rotor, by W.J.M. Rankine (1865), Alfred
Wind rotors can be divided into three main groups:
George Greenhill (1888) and Robert Edmund Froude (1889).
- System with horizontal axis
The rotor is modeled as an infinitely thin disc, inducing a constant velocity along the axis of
- System with vertical axis
rotation. The basic state of a helicopter is hovering. This disc creates a flow around the rotor.
- Hybrid
Under certain mathematical premises of the fluid, there can be extracted a mathematical
connection between power, radius of the rotor, torque and induced velocity. Friction is not SYSTEM WITH HORIZONTAL AXIS
included.
In this case the axis is perpendicular to the wind direction and the blades move to the

For a stationary open rotor with no outer duct, such as a helicopter in hover, the power direction of the air flux. The SAVONIUS rotor (from the name of the Finlander J. Savonius

required to produce a given thrust is: who invented it in 1929) is the simplest type. It can be built opposing two half cylinders
hinged on the axis of the rotor itself. In this type of rotor a system of orientation of the blades
is not necessary, however not all the surface is exposed to the wind. In fact, while a blade
 collects the air flux and it is pushed, the other one turns to the opposite side, reducing the
performance.

The main characteristics of this wind rotor are the following ones:

• front area totally used

• high speed of rotation
• high coefficient of lift
• high power obtainable
Fig. 4.6 SAVONIUS rotor

HYBRID SYSTEMS
They are the youngest and they combine the advantageous characteristics of both the systems
with horizontal and vertical axis. In general they are with vertical axis with propellers or
blades derived from the previous ones. Here are some examples: the Darrieous rotor, the
Cycloturbine, the Ropatec rotor, the rotor with delta flange (see the photo), ext.
The main characteristics of this wind rotor are the following ones:

Fig. 4.5 Wind Rotor a. easiness of construction b. high speed of rotation c. no orientation system
d. power coefficients close to the theoretical value

SYSTEM WITH VERTICAL AXIS

In this case the axis is perpendicular to the wind direction and the blades move to the direction of
the air flux. The SAVONIUS rotor (from the name of the Finlander J. Savonius who invented it
in 1929) is the simplest type. It can be built opposing two half cylinders hinged on the axis of the
rotor itself. In this type of rotor a system of orientation of the blades is not necessary, however
not all the surface is exposed to the wind. In fact, while a blade collects the air flux and it is Fig 4.7 Hybrid Wind Rotor System
pushed, the other one turns to the opposite side, reducing the performance .
4.9 Concentrations and augments
The main characteristics of this wind rotor are the following ones:
 Principle of operation that can be applied to a large variety of new wind turbines designs.
a. low speed of rotation b. high mechanical torque c. modest performance
 As a function of the choices in design, this new generation of a wind turbine apparatus
improves or remedies each of the above-mentioned problems associated with traditional
wind turbines
 The basic concept is the funneling of wind in a conduit to concentering it.
  The flux of compressed air is thereby directed to interact with the most efficient surface  Long-term fluctuations.
of a wind turbine propeller blade.
Mean Wind Speed and Energy Distribution: The mean wind speed can be defined as
 The turbine can thus be designed with the goal of benefiting from the weakest winds or, time-averaged wind speed, averaged over a specified time interval. The mean wind speed
contrarily, benefiting from the strongest winds. varies with elevation above mean sea level and the averaging time interval; a standard
 Since the wind turbine is housed within the apparatus, the resulting noise caused by reference elevation is 10 m and a standard time interval is 1 h. In practice this implies that we
aerodynamic motions can be almost completely attenuated. should carefully define our energy demands

 Furthermore, an enclosed wind turbine conceals the visible movement of the propellers  Minimum energy production (water/electricity) per week/month/year. This value,
and protects flying wildlife together with the average wind speed, will give the minimum rotor size (and a first
estimate of cost price).
 Aerodynamics is a branch of dynamics concerned with studying the motion of air,
particularly when it interacts with a solid object. Aerodynamics is a subfield of fluid  Allowance of no energy production during a certain period (giving an impression about
dynamics and gas dynamics, with much theory shared between them. Aerodynamics is water storage tanks or batteries).
often used synonymously with gas dynamics, with the difference being that gas dynamics
 Time of the year that the system is really producing energy.
applies to all gases.
In order to decide whether or not a wind energy system will satisfy our energy needs, we
Augmentation
have to know more about the prevailing wind speeds at the future wind turbine site.
 Diffuser Augmented Wind Turbines (DAWTs) are one of many concepts to have been
4.11 Performance of Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS)
proposed to reduce the cost of renewable energy. As the most commercially viable, they
have been the focus of numerous theoretical, computational, and experimental The complete wind energy conversion systems (WECS), which converts the energy
investigations.
present in the moving air (wind) to electric energy. The wind passing through the blades
 Although intimated in these studies to be able to augment the power output of a wind
of the wind turbine generates a force that turns the turbine shaft. The rotational shaft turns
turbine, the extent of this power increase, or augmentation, the factors influencing
DAWT performance, the optimal geometric form and their economical benefit remained the rotor of an electric generator, which converts mechanical power into electric power.
unanswered. The major components of a typical wind energy conversion system include the wind
 To translate the available augmentation into shaft power a modified blade element turbine, generator, interconnection apparatus and control systems. The power developed
method has been developed using an empirically-derived axial velocity equation. The
by the wind turbine mainly depends on the wind speed, swept area of the turbine blade,
resulting blade designs whose efficiencies reached 77%, twice those of Grumman,
highlight the accuracy of the modified blade element method in calculating the flow density of the air, rotational speed of the turbine and the type of connected electric
conditions at the blade-plane of the multi-slotted DAWT. machine.
 It was also noted that the rotor efficiencies remain below 'best practice' and therefore
offer the potential for further increases in shaft augmentation As shown in figure 1, there are primarily two ways to control the WECS. The first is the

4.10 Wind characteristics Aerodynamic power control at either the Wind Turbine blade or nacelle, and the second
is the electric power control at an interconnected apparatus, e.g., the power electronics
Site-specific wind characteristics pertinent to wind turbines include:
converters. The flexibility achieved by these two control options facilitates extracting
 Mean wind speed: Only interesting as a headline figure, but does not tell how often high maximum power from the wind during low wind speeds and reducing the mechanical
wind speeds occur.
stress on the wind turbine during high wind speeds.
 Wind speed distribution : diurnal, seasonal, annual patterns.
 Turbulence: short-term fluctuations.
  May reduce the local bird population

 Wind turbines are prone to noise disturbances

 Installation can take up a significant portion of land

 Wind turbines can be a safety hazard

 Wind turbines are suited to a particular region

Fig. 4.8 (a) Working Diagram of Wind Power Generation System

Important questions of Unit 4 (Short Answer, Medium Answer and Long

Answer Type)

[Link] Seebeck Effect and Peltier Effect. (AKTU2021)

2. Definebrieflyaboutcutinspeedandtipspeedratio. (AKTU2022)

3. What is the basic difference between thermoelectric and thermionic electric

conversion systems? Also, explain the working of thermoelectric generators?
(AKTU2021)
4. Using Betz model of a wind turbine, derive the expression for power extracted
from wind. Under what condition does the maximum theoretical power can be
extracted from the wind turbine? (AKTU2021)

5. State Thermo-electrical conversions towards field. Discuss in detail about

Fig. 4.8 (b) Working Diagram of Wind Power Generation System
performance and limitations of thermoelectric power generator. (AKTU2022)
4.12 Limitations of Wind Energy Conversion System

 The wind is inconsistent

 Wind turbines involve high upfront capital investment

 Wind turbines have a visual impact