Development of an advanced thermoelectric heat pump system including high efficiency heat exchangers based on phasechange to enhance the power-to-heat energy conversion
Authors:   , Erro Iturralde Irantzu 
Published: April 2024

The solution to address the climate emergency lies in promoting the integration of renewable energies into the energy mix, alongside with enhancing energy efficiency. However, taking into account the natural intermittency of renewable sources the use of energy storage systems becomes imperative. Among the different energy storage systems, thermal energy storage presents a promising option. These thermal energy storage systems efficiently store excess renewable energy in the form of heat, enabling its conversion back into electricity or its direct application for heating. In order to promote the usage of thermal energy storage systems, it is imperative to develop efficient power-to-heat energy conversion systems. This offers a chance for the development of thermoelectric technology working as heat pumps for heating purposes, providing the advantage of avoiding the use of refrigerants and being a modular technology. According to certain studies, two-stage thermoelectric heat pumps demonstrate superior performance for high-temperature differences compared to one-stage configuration, allowing their use for high-temperature requirements. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of research conducted on two-stage thermoelectric heat pumps for heating applications. Therefore, the present Ph.D. dissertation aims to design and develop an optimised thermoelectric heat pump system for heating high-temperatures to enhance the performance of the power-to-heat energy conversion process for thermal energy storage. Firstly, two prototypes of two-stage thermoelectric heat pumps utilising different intermediate heat exchangers: monophasic and phase-change and with the aim of heating an airflow were developed and compared. The novel phase-change heat exchanger achieves a notable reduction in thermal resistance, resulting in an increase of more than 16% in the heat flux supplied to the airflow and a reduction of more than 6% in the consumed power of the system. Experimental COP values ranging between 3.25 and 1.26 have been obtained by the novel two-stage phase-change heat pump, improving the COP values between a 30 % and a 67 % in comparison with the two-stage monophasic heat pump. Additionally, this initial study presents a novel approach for calculating heat flux to airflow. Subsequently, a study on sensibility was carried out to assess the performance of various configurations of thermoelectric heat pumps. The experimental campaign highlighted the requirement of two-stage configurations to attain high temperatures and heat fluxes, while the one-stage thermoelectric heat pump exhibited superior performance in low-temperature operations. Following the experimental results, an assessment was carried out on the application of an optimised thermoelectric heat pump system for the charging process of a thermal energy storage. In order to achieve an accurate tool able to simulate the behaviour of two-stage thermoelectric heat pumps, a computational model was developed. The computational model relies on the thermal-electrical analogy and the finite difference method. The accuracy of the developed tool is certified through the validation conducted using experimental results and showing a discrepancy of less than ± 10 % for the COP values, ± 8 % for the generated heat and airflow temperature lift, and less than ± 6% for the consumed power. Finally, an optimised thermoelectric heat pump system was constructed to be installed into a real thermal energy storage system to assess its impact. A series of experiments were performed, wherein the airflow rate, voltage supply to the thermoelectric heat pump system, and storage temperature were varied. It has been demonstrated that an increased airflow rate enhances the efficiency of the thermoelectric heat pump. When utilising an airflow rate of 23 m³/h and setting the storage temperature to 120 °C, the installation of this novel thermoelectric system demonstrates a 30% improvement in the power-to-heat process compared to a conventional process in which electrical resistances are used. In addition, the utilisation of this thermal energy storage system in a decentralised combined heat and power system yields efficiencies of 112.6 %, ensuring the generation of 1.126 kW of useful heating and electrical power from every surplus electrical kW produced by renewable energies.