5. Applications

The conditions of use and the nature of the heat sources are the criteria used to classify thermoelectric generator applications in this section.

The generators have therefore been grouped into five categories:

• In extreme environments, heat sources are conventional and dedicated to generators;

• recovery of lost thermal energy: these are existing hot sources (mainly from the combustion of fossil fuels by heat engines) that we wish to optimize;

• decentralized power generation and cogeneration: energy sources are mainly renewable;

• micro-production for sensors, micro-electronics and micro-actuators: power levels are very low and all heat sources are acceptable;

• thermoelectric solar: the...