The search and selection for a suitable thermoelectric cooler (TEC) to optimize a cooling system design can be a tedious task as there are many product ranges from several TEC manufacturers. Although the manufacturers do provide proprietary manuals or electronic search facilities for their products, the process is still cumbersome as these facilities are incompatible. The electronic facilities often have different user interfaces and functionalities, while the manual facilities have different presentations of the performance characteristics. This paper presents a methodology to assist the designer to size and select the TECs from different manufacturers. The approach will allow designers to find quickly and to evaluate the devices from different TEC manufacturers. Based on the approach, the article introduces a new operational framework for an Internet based thermoelectric cooling system design process that would promote the interaction and collaboration between the designers and TEC manufacturers. It is hoped that this work would be useful for the advancement of future tools to assist designers to develop, analyze and optimize thermoelectric cooling system design in minimal time using the latest TECs available on the market. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.