An optimal solar-thermoelectric hybrid energy system for hybrid electric vehicles

In the development of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), more and more researches are concentrated on the renewable energy sources. Due to the limitation of the previous maximum power point tracking algorithm (MPPT), these renewable energy systems are controlled separately. In this paper, an optimal solar-thermoelectric hybrid energy system for HEVs is proposed with MPPT. This method can track the global maximum power point of the hybrid system with minimum hardware cost. The key is to use the modeling approach to estimate the maximum power point, and then apply the perturb-and-observe method to search the actual maximum power point. The results verify that the proposed hybrid system can work effectively under different conditions, and is promising for application to HEVs.