Help understanding peltiers

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Peepsalot

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I have a small project I am working on which involves using a peltier device. I purchased one with the following specs:
16.1V 8.0A 80W

The first thing I noticed is that 16.1V * 8A = 128.8W, which is obviously greater than 80W.
So what are these numbers supposed to mean? Is it that I can feed it a maximum voltage, or current but not both? Does the peltier device have characteristics similar to a diode, or to a resistor, or something else? Can I simply hook it up to some voltage supply, or do I also need to limit current? What sort of input power would be best for maximum efficiency?
Lastly, can anyone recommend where to get a power supply that would work well for this purpose?

Thanks
 
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