Possible idea for an Evokation using TEG technology for energy scavenging. Looking for collaboraters

I am an energy efficiency obsessive. I have already written about the use of Thermo Electric Generators to produce electricity for temperature differentials. I mentioned the possibility of using the heat from a car exhaust to store power that could be used for domestic use. As it turns out, BMW and NASA are already working on a TEG to produce power for a ca... (air conditioner). So the field of using TEGs is actually growing already.

I did have a thought about using a TEG to help extract energy from the heat produced by an electronic device such as a computers CPU and to turn that into useable electricity through increasing the wh*** efficiency of the system. Even if that saving was just 0.5 of one percent, that would mean that if there are 200 computers being run at any given time, one of them will be drawing the same quantity of power that is being paid back, so to speak, through scavenging the heat energy from other computers CPUs.

I found a school project that investigated the production of electrical energ... with a temperature gradient of up to 85 degrees celcius. The power gain was not all that great. However, if the TEG cell was of high enough efficiency and if they were placed in all locations inside the computer case where there is a heat sink on an electronic device (E.g., between the CPU and the heat sink itself) some small power saving could be gained. However that will depend on the advances on the technology, the type of TEG and so on.

TEGs are actually used in cooling, there is a company that creates milk coling devices and pa**** an electrical current through the cells to create what is called the Peltier Effect. The propper term for the objects that I am calling TEGs is in fact Peltier Semiconductor Coolers, but if you apply a temperature differential to them they do create an electrical charge. When you use these Peltier Semiconductor Coolers to create power rather then to create cooling, you are using something called the Seeback effect.

These devices are already being used by hobbyists to create electricity when they go backpacking, but I was wondering if there is a more advanced use for TEG technology.


In the home and office there are lots of forms of energy inneficiency in the form of heat loss.
1) The hot water that the washing machines pour down their waste pipe,
2) The hot steamy air that exits the combination boiler's ventilation duct,
3) The warm water that goes down the drain after we have had a bath or during a shower.
4) The hot air that comes out of an air conditioning unit
5) The heat that comes off any mains electrical transformer
6) The heat generated in a battery when one uses ones cellphone for a long period of time
7) The hot air that exits the tumble dryer
8) The heat lost throuh our windows in the winter.

Maybe TEG devices could be created to scavange energy from the heat lost that way as well as to use the heat output of CPUs and other heat producing electronic components?

During the winter, there is a lack of solar energy to warm our houses, but there is a temperature differential between the cold window glass and the warm inside of our homes. Maybe an attractive almost Venitian style blind could be created that lays TEGs accross the window glass so as to make the temperature differential between the cold window glass and the hot inside of the house at night do some work generating electricity and help to reduce our carbon footprint? I am not too sure of the thermal physics of this, but maybe because the temperature differential is being used to do some real work and make some electricity, it might have an effect on increasing the insulation of the property? I will have to look into that aspect of thermal dynamics more though.

The pont is that there are many forms of thermal inneficiencies and as TEGs really can produce electricity from temperature differentials, if we all had TEGs fitted all over the place, we could possibly save gigawatts of power throughout the UK, USA, Australia and EU combined, thus reducing the pollution caused by the first world.

That must be something worth working towards.

PS., I should also like to add that if just 0.5% of all energy could be recoped through TEG technology, that would mean that as far as electricity usage is concerned, in a nation of 70 million people, if this technology was implimented in all or most devices used by all the population and the savings of 0.5 % could be maintained, one third (1/3) of a million people would be using electricity with a zero or near zero impact on the environment. Hypothetically, if ALL power is going to be generated by green technology, TEG technology could reduce the need for power in the first place thus meaning that we will need less wind and wave power etc.

Also the energy lost to the environment in chimneys and flus in peoples homes when they use a wood pellet stove is another source of power to be scavenged. Also when people use downdraft Imbert gassifier units to make wood or coal gas for power, the ga**** have to be cooled, that could also be done with TEg technology. In power stations where there are large cooling towers there is also energy inneficiency there and the thermo electric effect could be used to assist in the cooling as well as generating power thus reducing the need for cooling towers.

ANY industry where heat is created can be a place where heat energy can be scavenged from to produce electricity thanks to the thermo electric effect :)

Now we need TEG inventions, manufacture and the willpower of the governemnts to impliment this technology throughout the western world in all areas of our lives. Thats where the real challenge is.