Experimental evaluation of a solar thermoelectric cooled ceiling combined with displacement ventilation system

Highlights: • A novel solar thermoelectric cooled ceiling combined with displacement ventilation system is developed and tested. • The cooling and heating capacities and performance of the system are evaluated. • Its coefficient of performance could be comparable to those of conventional AC systems with ZT value of 2. • Typical application issues including condensation risk, coupling with a PV system, etc., are discussed. - Abstract: A novel solar thermoelectric cooled ceiling combined with displacement ventilation system (STCC-DV) is proposed and investigated in this paper. In STCC-DV system, thermoelectric modules are employed as heating source instead of conventional hydronic pipe, and the combined system dehumidifies the fresh air using a thermoelectric dehumidified system. Both the cooled ceiling and dehumidified ventilation system are powered by PV system. At this stage of our study, we are developing a solar thermoelectric cooled ceiling (STCC) system by using commercially TE technologies. The experiments have been done in a test room using radiant panels whose dimension is 1800 × 600 mm. The results show that the total heat flux and COP of the panel are strongly influenced by operating voltage, ambient temperature and indoor temperature. The total heat flux of the STCC system in cooling mode is higher than 60 W/m² and the system COP can reaches 0.9 under operating voltage 5 V. In heating mode, the total heat flux of the STCC system under operating voltage 4 V is higher than 110 W/m² and the COP of the system can reaches 1.9. This simply and environmentally friendly system is promising and worthwhile being applied to for low carbon buildings climate control