New £300 thermo electric generator

[sam_uk]

I have mentioned these before, the company has just come out with a air cooled version for woodstoves that are a lot less hassle than the water cooled version that I got.

I made up a scenario and looked into the relative merits of these vs solar or wind.

Baseline scenario

You live in a in a boat, van or small cabin you use a renewable system for lighting and a bit of computer use, phone charging that kind of thing.

Your existing set up is; £600 investment in two 100ah solar cells Feeding a 550ah 12v battery bank

You live there year round. You heat it with a small woodstove from October - March between 5pm- 12pm weekdays, and 10am - 12pm weekends. (63 hours per week)

In summer when you use the least light you will be getting around 83 amp hours into your battery per day
http://midsummerenergy.co.uk/solar_pane ... ?power=100

In winter you will be getting 16.6 amp hours per day, or 116.2 amps per week into the batteries.

-------------

Winter calculations

If you buy another panel (£300ish) you will get an extra 8.3 amps per day

= 58.1 new amp hours per week

-------------



If you buy a £300 wind turbine http://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/buy-on ... d_233.html

Using the 400w 'Delta court' output data from here, (this is based on a £1000 turbine rated at 400w so I have been generous and split the 1kw per month figure in half) http://www.warwickwindtrials.org.uk/res ... eport+.pdf

You could expect maybe 500 watt hr per month, 125 watt hour per week

=10.4 new amp hour per week

-------------------


If you get the TEG (£300ish) it will give you 2.5 amps per hour. Assuming you run your stove 63 hours a week you would get

= 157 new amp hours per week from the TEG


----



The Teg will give you less total power averaged out over the whole year than the panel, but it will give you the power when you need it most; in midwinter.

There is also something to be said for the fact that it is under your control and if batteries get really low you can light up a fire to top them up whatever time of year it is.


http://tegpower.com/products.html

I have no connection to tegpower.com

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Their products look like they are made in a shed for a school project.

Maybe they buy in their kits from someone like CustomTherm and just assemble them?

What was your water cooled one like for build quality and efficiency?

[adam2]

Such technology shows great promise.
Although the theory has been understood for decades, this has only recently become a practical source of electric power.
Until a few years ago, the hot side of a peltier module was limited to about 100 degrees, newer types withstand higher temperatures.

I am wary of the product linked to, simply because the technology is a little new.
In the same category as CFLs 30 years ago, or high power LEDs 5 years ago.

It would be most interesting to see any truly independant reviews of this product.
I am a bit tempted to buy one for trial, but it is a fair bit of money to risk if it does not live up to expectations.

Remember that the efficiency of fuel into electricity is very low, burning fuel to operate such a device is most unlikely to make sense.
If however the fuel is being burnt anyway for cooking or heating, then the idea is far more attractive.