The practical application environments of thermoelectric generators (TEGs) always change, which make a requirement for studying the dynamic response characteristics of TEGs. This work develops a complete, three-dimensional and transient model to investigate this issue. The model couples the energy and electric potential equations. Seebeck effect, Peltier effect, Thomson effect, Joule heating and Fourier heat conduction are taken into account in this model. Dynamic output power and conversion efficiency of the TEG, which are caused by variations of the hot end temperature, cold end temperature and load current, are studied. The response hysteresis of the output power to the hot end and cold end temperatures, the overshoot or undershoot of the conversion efficiency are found and attributed to the delay of thermal diffusion. However, the output power is synchronous with the load current due to much faster electric response than thermal response. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.