Secondary Concentrating Solar Collector

What is a solar concentrating collector?

Solar concentrating collectors are special types of thermal collectors that convert the solar radiation energy to the internal energy of the heat transfer fluid (such as water, oil, or air) in the collectors. You might find these chapters and articles relevant to this topic. G. Kiss, in Metropolitan Sustainability, 2012

What are concentrating and non-concentrating hybrid solar collectors?

Concentrating and non-concentrating hybrid solar collectors have drawn increasing interest thanks to their multiple advantages compared to the conventional counterparts, including the higher efficiency and dual production of thermal and electrical energies, alleviating energy security and environmental concerns.

Can concentrating collector systems improve the performance of solar power plants?

It could be noted through the literature that concentrating collector systems could have a storage component that enables the solar collector to use the absorbed heat by the concentrator at night time and increases the performance, namely thermal and electrical efficiencies as well as plant's production rate.

Do concentrating solar collectors reduce thermal losses?

By Eq. (6.29) it is possible to justify the high temperatures reached through the concentrating solar collectors. Here, in fact, the higher the concentration ratio (C), the lower the thermal losses (obtaining thermal efficiencies approaching the optical ones). The LFCs, similarly to PTCs, are one-axis concentrating solar thermal devices.

How concentrating solar thermal collector works?

Adolfo Palombo, in Solar Hydrogen Production, 2019 The concentrating collectors can absorb the sun radiation and convert it to thermal energy by interposing an optical device between the radiation source and the energy-absorbing surface. A sketch of concentrating solar thermal collector concept is depicted in Fig. 6.10.

What are the different types of concentrating solar collectors?

Generally, concentrating solar collectors can be classified into four systems: PTCs, SDCs, LFRs, and CTRs or Heliostat field reflectors (HFRs). The reflective material of a PTC is twisted into the parabola shape, therefore this collector is named a parabolic trough .