  Coupling between heat and electrical currents is at the heart of
thermoelectric processes. From a thermal viewpoint this may be seen as an
additional thermal flux linked to the appearance of electrical current in a
given thermoelectric system. Since this additional flux is associated to the
global displacement of charge carriers in the system, it can be qualified as
convective in opposition to the conductive part associated with both phonons
transport and heat transport by electrons under open circuit condition, as,
e.g., in the Wiedemann-Franz relation. In this article we demonstrate that
considering the convective part of the thermal flux allows both new insight
into the thermoelectric energy conversion and the derivation of the maximum
power condition for generators with realistic thermal coupling.
