Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 27 (2021) 101252 Available online 17 July 2021 2214-157X/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Yearly performance of the photovoltaic active cooling system using the thermoelectric generator H. Metwally * , N.A. Mahmoud, W. Aboelsoud, Mohamed Ezzat Ain Shams University, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo, Egypt A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Photovoltaic panels Active cooling TEG Efficiency PV performance ABSTRACT The PV panel absorbs solar irradiation flux on the surface. Part of the absorbed flux generates electricity, and a more significant amount converts into heat. Different methods are used to maintain photovoltaic at low temperatures. Heat is transferred in all heat transfer forms con- duction, convection, and radiation. A photovoltaic panel model is developed in the current study that consists of an active cooling technique. Active cooling systems developed model uses do- mestic water as a thermoelectric generator’s heat sink, and the photovoltaic temperature is a thermoelectric generator heat source. The proposed system depends on domestic water flow from the storage tank to the domestic building system at ambient temperature and under gravity flows and no extra power cost in the water flow process. The active cooling process keeps the PV panel at a steady temperature for almost 2 h and decreases the PV panel temperature in Winter, Spring, and Summer to 295K, 302K, and 311K, respectively, which is sufficient. The results also show the panel efficiency and electrical power generation enhancement by 4% and 20%, respectively, when the efficiency enhancement was steady for 6 h even under transient irradiation flux. 1. Introduction Electrical power generation is the most expensive energy transformation, so governments’ investment orientation uses renewable energy. The most effective renewable energy is photovoltaic panels with different types of flat and concentrated types. Different methods were used to maintain PV at low temperatures. The most promising active cooling system utilizing excess heat in the PV panel is thermoelectric power generation (TEG). The TEG uses the high PV temperature and converts access heat to electricity. Active cooling system performance depends on ambient temperature and tilts angle, affecting around 10% of system efficiency. Karami et al. [1] and Kohan et al. [2] investigated a PV-TEG system with changing system parameters as material properties, several TEG couples, cross-sectional area, length to achieve more compatible and efficient system integration. The PV-TEG system application enhances power generation by 10–20% and the overall efficiency by 40–50% [3]. Furthermore, TEG has no moving parts, so it is quiet and environmental. Many applications use PCM latent heat to generate power from TEG at night [4]. Otherwise, the TEG device is integrated into the CPV-TEG system, developing a conventional CPV-T-TEG system and CPV-TEG with PCM. The CPV-TEG system integration manages significant electrical power enhancement up to 49.5% [5], rather than CPV-TEG without PCM simulation found system efficiency reached 40% [6,7]. Sark et al. [8] developed a combined PV-TEG by adding a TEG converter to the back of the PV panel directly for efficiency evaluation. TEG device using PV temperature as heat source * Corresponding author. E-mail address: hishammetwaly@gmail.com (H. Metwally). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Case Studies in Thermal Engineering journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/csite https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csite.2021.101252 Received 18 January 2021; Received in revised form 8 July 2021; Accepted 13 July 2021