Yamaha Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation Power & Mobility Co., Ltd., a Sumitomo Corporation Group company (hereafter referred to as “both companies” or “we”), have jointly demonstrated a new waste heat recovery system based on thermoelectric generator (hereafter referred to as “TEG”) technology, which generates electrical power via exhaust gas heat and was proved to reduce CO2 emissions during vehicle testing on a chassis dynamometer (hereafter referred to as “this demonstration test”).
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TEG unit, which is installed in a part of vehicle exhaust system, can reduce CO2 emissions following the reduction of alternator load achieved by generating electrical power from unutilized waste exhaust gas and also by early warm-up of engine by heated coolant through TEG unit at engine start.
In this demonstration test TEG unit was installed in a test vehicle, and the generated electrical power from TEG unit and CO2 emissions were measured on a chassis dynamometer. Thanks to the TEG unit, 1.9% of CO2 emissions (i.e. 3.9 g/km) was reduced throughout the European WLTP*1 driving cycle. Following this result, the potential benefit of TEG unit was estimated to be 3.1% CO2 reduction (i.e. 6.4g/km) by further optimization of vehicle installation of TEG unit.
Background of the Development
Recently the activities to realize a carbon neutral society have been accelerated globally and further CO2 reduction has been requested strongly to automotive industry.
TEG has long been drawing attention as one of the environmental technologies, and in the automotive industry various development efforts have been made to materialize the technology to reduce CO2 emissions. However, due to the insufficient performance and reliability of the TEG module, and also lack of engineering work to design the system using TEG unit on a vehicle, the technology has yet to be put into practical use.
In March 2021, both companies commenced sample sales of a TEG module, YGPX024*2, that features the highest output and largest size*3, to investigate market needs. We have now conducted this demonstration test for automotive applications where business on a large market scale can be expected.