Thermo-Photo-Voltaic Generator Development

The growing demand of energy coupled with an increasing attention to the environmental impact have forced, in the last decades, the study and the development of new strategies in order to reduce primary energy consumptions. The combined heat and power (CHP) cogeneration and the on-site generation (also known as distributed generation) could be the key strategy to achieve this goal; CHP systems allow to reduce the fuel consumption and pollutant emissions (in particular the greenhouse gases) compared to separate generation; moreover on-site-generation contributes to the reduction of the energy which is lost in electricity transmission and increases the security in the energy supply. In this scenario the Thermo– Photo–Voltaic (TPV) generation is obtaining an increasing attention; TPV is a system to convert into electrical energy the radiation emitted from an artificial heat source (i.e., the combustion of fuel) by the use of photovoltaic (PV) cells. A domestic gas furnace based on this technology can provide the entire thermal need at a small utility scale, i.e., from 20 to 400 kW thermal and can also contribute to satisfy the electrical demand. In this paper, the recent research developments on TPV generation are reported.