Study of Thermoelectric Air Duct Cooling/Heating System for Building Energy Efficient

At present, effort of maintaining thermal comfort in buildings has become a great challenge faced by the majority of the developing countries. As the process of air conditioning, particularly in large buildings can lead to excessive use of energy. This study describes experimental results of an air duct system that cools down airflow by using TEMs (thermoelectric modules). This system is designated as thermoelectric air duct system (TE-AD) which consists of three TEMs along with heat sink and fan for circulation of air. Result shows that the TE-AD system reduces room temperature in the range of 1.3-3.9 °C and humidity in the range of 4-16%. The coefficient of performance (COP) of the system ranges from 0.45-0.76 under different operating input current i.e. 2 A, 3A up to 6 A for Abah, Saudi Arabia weather conditions. TE-AD system consumes 2322.08 to 2612.21 kWh less energy annually as compared to the 0.5-ton-capacity air split conditioning system, carbon dioxide mitigation potential of 0.69 ton/year and a sensible heat ratio (SHR) of 0.42.