Abstract: In order to control the heat source temperature and to improve the thermoelectric conversion efficiency of RTPV, a high-temperature thermal control method based on aerogel discrete spacer MLI is proposed, and the thermal model is established. The accuracy and applicability of the model are verified by experimental results. The thermal performance of the RTPV is analyzed by using the model. The results show that the heat source temperature is 1078 ℃ when the emissivity of the emitter is 0.145 and that the emissivity of the reflector is 0.162. The heat source temperature increases monotonously with the decrease of the emitter emissivity and the reflector emissivity. When the number of MLI layers is less than 20, increasing the number of layers can significantly improve the insulation performance of MLI. The results provide a basis for thermal design and optimization of RTPV.

Key words: RTPV, discrete spacer MLI, emitter emissivity, reflector emissivity, MLI layer number