Solar Thermal 19-EE, EED

UET Taxila
Collectors
  The conversion of the radiant energy from the sun into
heat directly, which can then be used for different
purposes such as space and water heating, industrial
process heat, or power generation.
 Solar thermal energy is one of the most promising
Solar Thermal renewable energy technology. The solar thermal
collectors convert solar radiation into heat that can either
Energy be directly utilized (for various applications) or may be
stored
 The applications include domestic hot water (DHW),
space heating and cooling, crop drying, solar cooking,
daylighting and electric power generation
Applications of Solar Thermal Collectors
 When a dark surface is placed in sunshine, it absorbs solar
radiation and heats up.

Solar thermal collectors generically consist of a surface facing

the sun, which transfers part of the absorbed solar energy to a
working fluid in contact with it.

Working Solar thermal collectors suffer from heat losses owing to

radiation and convection, which increase rapidly as the
temperature of the working fluid increases.
Principle To reduce heat losses to the atmosphere, one or two sheets of
glass are usually placed over the absorber surface to improve its
efficiency.

Improvements such as the use of selective surfaces, evacuation

of the collector to reduce heat losses, and special kinds of glass
are used to increase the efficiency of these devices.
 Solar thermal collectors are classified (on the
basis of temperature of heat transfer fluid) as
Low-, medium- or High-temperature collectors.

Low temperature collectors are flat-plates

Types w.r.t generally used for low-temperature applications.

temperature
Medium-temperature collectors are used for
range heating water or air for commercial use.

High-temperature collectors concentrate sunlight

using mirrors or lenses and are generally used for
electric power production.
 Solar collectors can be classified into two
general categories: (i) non-concentrating and
(ii) concentrating.

In the non-concentrating type, the collector

Types w.r.t area (the area that intercepts the solar
radiation) is the same as the absorber area (the
shape area that absorbs the radiation)

The concentrating solar thermal collectors

utilize optical concentrating devices (mirrors or
lenses) for the concentration of solar radiation
on the absorber surface
Types w.r.t shape
  Flat plate collectors (FPC) and evacuated tube collectors
(ETC) are non-concentrating type collectors.
 These collectors are mainly designed for domestic hot
water and industrial process heat applications which
Non- require energy delivery at temperatures in the low-
temperature range.
concentrating  These collectors use both diffuse and beam solar
Collectors radiation and do not require tracking of the sun.
 They are mechanically simpler than concentrating
collectors and require less maintenance
 Flat plate collectors are the simplest thermal
conversion devices.

Flat Plate They are available today for operation over a

range of temperatures up to approximately 365
Collectors K (200°F).

These collectors are suitable mainly for

providing hot water service and space heating
and possibly are also able to operate
absorption-type air-conditioning systems.
Components of Flat Plate Collector
Commercially available Flat Plate Collectors
Evacuated Tube Collectors
Concentrating Solar Collectors –
Concentration Ratio (CR)
 Concentration of solar radiation is achieved by reflecting or refracting the
flux incident on an aperture area Aa onto a smaller receiver/absorber area Ar.
 An optical concentration ratio, CRo, is defined as the ratio of the solar flux Ir
on the receiver to the flux, Ia, on the aperture, or
 CRo = Ir/Ia
 Geometric concentration ratio GCR is based on the areas, or
 CR = Aa/Ar.
Concentrating Solar Collectors

 Concentrators are inherently more efficient at a given temperature than are

flat-plate collectors, since the area from which heat is lost is smaller than the
aperture area.
 In a flat-plate device, both areas are equal in size.
 One disadvantage of concentrators is that they can collect only a small
fraction of the diffuse energy incident at their aperture
 Acceptance angle is the maximum angle at which incoming sunlight can be
captured by a solar concentrator.
 Its value depends on the concentration of the optic and the refractive index in
which the receiver is immersed.
  Concentrators can be classified according to the
following:
 Amount of tracking required to maintain the sun within
the acceptance angle
 Type of tracking—single or double axis
Concentrator  Tracking requirements depend on the acceptance half-
types angle θmax: the larger the θmax, the less frequently and
less accurately the tracker must operate.
 Two tracking levels may be identified:
 Intermittent tilt change or completely fixed.
 Continuously tracking reflector, refractor, or receiver.
  The least complex concentrators are those not requiring
continuous accurate tracking of the sun.
 These are necessarily of large acceptance angle,
moderate concentration ratio, and usually single-
Concentrator curvature design.
 Because the smallest diurnal, angular excursion of the
types sun is in a north–south plane,
 The fixed or intermittently turned concentrators must be
oriented with the axis of rotation perpendicular to this
plane, that is, in an east–west direction, in order to
capitalize on the large acceptance angles.
  These concentrators don’t require continuous and
accurate tracking of sun
 A simple fixed-concentrator concept is based on using
flat reflectors to boost the performance of a flat-plate
Fixed collector
 The concentration ratio of these concentrators is of the
Concentrators order of 1.5 to 3 (Low Concentration).
 For higher concentrations, spherical or parabolic
reflecting or refracting surfaces are used.
One-sided Horizontal Reflector
Flat Reflectors (Double-sided)
  The most common commercially available solar concentrator is the
parabolic trough concentrator (PTC).
 PTC collectors usually track the sun with one degree of freedom
using one of three orientations: east–west, north–south, or polar.
 Sun tracking can be done for each by programming computers that
Parabolic control the tracking motors.
 The east–west and north–south configurations are the simplest to
Trough assemble into large arrays but have higher incidence angle cosine
losses than the polar mount.
Concentrator  The polar mount intercepts more solar radiation per unit area.
 The absorber of a PTC is usually tubular, enclosed in a glass tube
to reduce radiative and convective losses.
 The convective losses can be minimized by creating a vacuum in
the annular space between the absorber and the glass cover.
Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC)
A Field of PTC Collectors
  Reflectance of clean mirror, ρ. Typical clean silvered
glass mirrors used in PTC have reflectance of around
0.93–0.94.

Optical  Transmittance of glass envelope of absorber, τ. A typical

value of transmittance is 0.93. However, it can be
Characteristics increased to more than 0.96 by applying antireflective
coatings to both sides of glass.
 Absorptance of receiver/absorber, α. Typical values of α
for selective absorbers are 0.94–0.95.
  Intercept factor, γ, defined as the fraction of the rays
reflected from the mirror that reach the absorber.
 A fraction of the rays reflected from the mirror do not
reach the absorber because of
Optical  mirror imperfections
Characteristics  geometrical errors in the parabolic reflector shape
 mechanical deformations during tracking
 shadowing owing to flexible bellows and the receiver
supports.
 • Neglecting the mirror imperfections, the intercept for 0°
angle of incidence can be considered as made up of three
factors:
• geometrical errors in parabolic trough shape, γ1
• shadowing by flexible bellows and receiver supports,
γ2
Optical
• mechanical deformation of the support structure
Characteristics during tracking, γ3
• The intercept factor γ is therefore given by
• γ = γ1γ2γ3
• The intercept factor γ lies in the range of 0.92–0.94
  The collectors used for high-temperature solar
processes are of the double curvature type and require
a dual-axis tracking
 Concentration ratios above 50 are generally used.
Compound  Examples of concentrator designs include the
Curvature following:
 Spherical mirror, CR = 50–150
Concentrators  Paraboloidal mirror, CR = 500–3000
 Fresnel lens, CR = 100–1000
 Fresnel mirror, CR = 1000–3000
  The surface produced by rotating a parabola about its
optical axis is called a paraboloid.
 The ideal optics of such a reflector is the same, in cross
Paraboloidal section, as those of the parabolic trough

Concentrators  However, owing to the compound curvature, the focus

occurs ideally at a point instead of along a line.
 The concentration ratio of paraboloids can be determined
easily from basic geometry.
Parabolic Dish Collector
  A second type of compound-curvature collector uses
spherical geometry instead of parabolic geometry
 Spherical aberration is seen to be present and causes
the reflected flux to be along a line instead of at a point
 The efficiency of this concentrator is lower than that of
other compound curvature devices, because of smaller
Spherical CR values; therefore, the unit cost of solar heat will be
higher.
Concentrators  One method of reducing the unit cost is to use the
concentrator with a fixed mirror, thereby eliminating
the expensive mirror tracking and structural components.
 This configuration is known as a stationary reflector
tracking absorber (SRTA) concentrator.
Spherical Concentrator
  A non-imaging concentrator concept called the
compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) was
developed by Winston (1974, 1975)
Compound  CR-CPC = CRmax,2D = 1/sin θmax
Parabolic  It is formed from two distinct parabolic segments, the
foci of which are located at the opposing receiver surface
Concentrator end points.
 The axes of the parabolic segments are oriented away
from the CPC axis by the acceptance angle θmax
Compound Parabolic Collector (CPC)
CPC with tubular absorber
Ray-trace Diagrams (different incident angles)
  A central receiver collector consists of a large field of
mirrors on the ground that track the sun in such a way
that the reflected radiation is concentrated on a
receiver/absorber on top of a tower.
 The mirrors are called Heliostats
Central  Central receivers can achieve temperatures of the order
Receiver of 1000°C or even higher
 Therefore, a central receiver concentrator is suitable for
Collector thermal electric power production in the range of 10–
1000 MW
 A central receiver collector consists of a heliostat field, a
central receiver, and the tracking controls for the
heliostats
Components of Central Receiver System (CRS) based PGS
A Commercial CRS based Power Generation System
  If the smooth optical surface of a reflector or a lens can
be broken into segments to achieve essentially the
same concentration, the resulting concentrator is called
the Fresnel concentrator.
Fresnel  Use of Fresnel reflectors for large collectors reduces the
wind load and simplifies manufacture.
Reflectors and  A Fresnel lens can achieve a concentration close to a
Lenses corresponding plano convex lens with far less material
and lower manufacturing costs.
 However, a disadvantage is that the facet edges
become rounded in the manufacturing process, which
makes the edges ineffective.
Fresnel Lens Linear Fresnel Reflectors
  Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems use high
temperature heat from concentrating solar collectors to
generate power in a conventional power cycle instead of
burning fossil fuel.

Concentrating  A variety of different CSP concepts exist in which the

heat transfer fluid is either used directly in the power
Solar Power cycle (steam/gas)
 or circulated in an intermediate secondary cycle (e.g.,
as thermal oil or molten salt), in which case an additional
heat transfer to the power cycle is required.
Components of CSP Pant
  CSP systems can also be distinguished by the
arrangement of their concentrator mirrors
 Line focusing systems like parabolic troughs or linear
Fresnel systems only require single axis tracking in order
to concentrate the solar radiation onto an absorber tube.

Types of CSP Concentration factors of up to 100 can be achieved in
practice.
Systems  Point focusing systems like parabolic dish
concentrators or central receiver systems (Solar Power
Towers) using a large number of individually tracking
heliostats to concentrate the solar radiation onto a
receiver located on the top of a central tower can achieve
concentration factors of several 1000 at the expense of
two-axis tracking
CSP Systems
 Parabolic Dish
Linear Fresnel Reflector
CSP Systems
  Parabolic trough power plants consist of large fields of
parabolic trough collectors.
 The solar field is modular in nature and comprises many
parallel rows of single-axis tracking parabolic trough solar
collectors, usually aligned on a north-south horizontal axis.

Parabolic  Each solar collector has a linear parabolic-shaped reflector

that focuses the sun’s direct beam radiation onto a linear
receiver (absorber tube) located at the focus of the parabola.
Trough Power  The collectors track the sun from east to west during the
day to ensure that the sun is continuously focused on the
Plants receiver.
 Thermal oil, a heat transfer fluid (HTF), is heated up to
393°C as it circulates through the receiver and returns to a
steam generator to produce slightly superheated steam at a
pressure of 50-100 bar, that is then fed into a steam turbine
as part of a conventional steam cycle power plant.
  Most of the commercial parabolic trough power plants
today are using a diphenyl-oxide/biphenyl eutectic
mixture as heat transfer fluid (HTF).
 The maximum cycle temperature is limited to values
below 400°C in order to avoid decomposition of the HTF
HTFs used for  However advanced silicon oil-based mixtures currently
PTC based PP under testing may allow temperatures up to 450°C
 Design cycle efficiency of these plants is slightly above
38%
 Annual efficiency of parabolic trough power plants is
currently about 15%
  The power block commonly used in PTC-based CSP
plants is a regenerative–reheat Rankine cycle
 The HTF passes through three heat exchangers to heat
the working fluid: preheater, boiler, and superheater.
 All of them are generally shell- and tube-type heat
exchangers.
Power Block  The HTF flows through the tube side while the working
fluid being heated flows through the shell side.
 The preheater heats the high-pressure working fluid to a
saturated liquid condition, the boiler heats it to a
saturated vapor condition while changing phase, and
finally the superheater heats it to the high temperature
of the cycle.
  There are normally two multistage turbines in the PTC
power plants: high-pressure and low-pressure
turbines.
 Reheat is normally applied between the high-pressure
turbine and the low-pressure turbines.
 Closed feedwater heaters are used to heat the
feedwater by extracting a small quantity of steam at
Turbines 
various stages in the turbine.
The closed feedwater heaters are shell- and tube-type
heaters.
 Open feedwater heaters simply mix the extracted steam
with the feedwater.
 The open feedwater heaters are also used as
deaerators to remove any air and other dissolved gases
from the working fluids.
  The condenser is a two-phase heat exchanger to
condense the working fluid vapor from the turbine
exhaust to saturated liquid.
 It is normally a shell- and tube-type heat exchanger
where the cooling water flows through the tube while
the steam flows through the shell side.

Condenser  The efficiency of the Rankine cycle depends on the

condenser pressure, which should be designed to be
as low as possible to obtain a condensing temperature
that is as low as possible.
 While fossil- or nuclear based power plants can be
located where the cooling water is available, solar power
plants are often located in desert areas where cooling
water may not be available.
  The air-cooled (also called dry-cooled) condensers
become necessary for solar thermal power plants
because of the scarcity of water where the solar
radiation is the most attractive

Air-cooled  Reduced maintenance costs (no chemical additives or

periodic cleaning required)
Condensers -  Elimination of the cooling tower plume

Advantages Reduction of condensation on the mirrors—no reduction
in the optical efficiency of PTC
 Plant siting flexibility
 Emission of only warm and clean air reducing adverse
environmental impact
  Lower heat-transfer coefficients; therefore, larger heat
exchanger area is needed.
Air-cooled  Greater fan power is required to achieve the same heat
transfer
Condensers -  Performance is strongly influenced by the ambient
Disadvantages temperatures that change with the time of the day and
the season.
 Lower power plant efficiency.
  There are successful examples of solar thermal power
plants working on Rankine cycle and using parabolic
troughs
 Luz Corporation (USA) developed components and
commercialized PTC-based solar thermal power by
constructing a series of such power plants from 1984 to
1991.
Examples  Starting with their first 14-MWe Solar Electric Generating
Station (SEGS I) in Southern California, they added a
series of SEGS power plants with a total generating
capacity of 354 MW
 All of the plants use natural gas as the auxiliary fuel so
that, on average, 75% of the energy is supplied from the
sun and 25% is from natural gas
  A Linear Fresnel System uses a series of long, narrow,
shallow-curvature (or even flat) mirrors to focus light
onto one or more linear absorbers positioned above the
Linear Fresnel mirrors
 Low-cost flat glass can be used and curved elastically
Reflector  Suitable aiming strategies (mirrors aimed at different
(LFR) Systems absorbers at different times of day) permit a denser
packing of mirrors on limited available land area
 Linear Fresnel collector systems are traditionally used for
direct steam generation in the collector field
A Commercial LFR based PP
  Central receiver systems (also called solar tower or
power tower) consist of a large number of two-axis
tracking mirrors (heliostats) each with a surface of 20-
200 m2 and a heat exchanger (receiver) located at the
Central top of a central tower

Receiver  The maximum distance from the farthest heliostats to the

receiver easily exceeds 1 km in power plants of some 10
Systems MW of capacity
 The receiver, in most cases a tube bundle heat
exchanger, may also be positioned inside a cavity to
reduce heat losses
  Central receiver systems are considered to have a large
potential for mid-term cost reduction of electricity
compared to parabolic trough technology, because they
CRS can achieve higher temperatures, resulting in more
efficient steam cycles or ultimately higher exergy cycles
Advantages using gas turbines at temperatures above 1000°C to
further increase efficiency and throughput.
and Limitations  However, solar tower technology had a slower
technology start compared to parabolic trough so that by
2018 less than 20% of all commercial CSP plants are
based on tower technology.
  The major parts of a parabolic dish system are the solar
concentrator and the power conversion unit
 The concentrator typically approximates a 3D
paraboloid tracking the sun

Parabolic Dish  Its size is limited to 100-400 m2 in practice due to wind

load constraints.
Systems  The power conversion unit includes the thermal receiver
and the engine/ generator.
 The thermal receiver absorbs the concentrated beam of
solar energy, converts it to heat, and transfers the heat to
the engine/generator
  A thermal receiver can be a bank of tubes with a
cooling fluid, usually hydrogen or helium, serving as
heat transfer media as well as working fluid for the
engine.
 Alternative thermal receivers are heat pipes wherein the
Components of boiling and condensing of an intermediate fluid is used to
transfer the heat to the engine.
PDS  The engine/generator system is the subsystem that
takes the heat from the thermal receiver and converts it
into electricity.
 The most common type of heat engine used in dish-
engine systems is the Stirling engine.
A Commercial PD based PP
  To operate a Stirling engine, the solar energy is
collected in the form of heat that flows from a hot source
to a cold sink.
Energy  The output of the Stirling cycle is then used to run the
Conversion in generator, thus electrical power is generated.
 The efficiency of the PD system with Stirling engine
PDS varies between 25% and 30%
 PDS has 50–100% higher solar-to-electric efficiencies
than SPTs and PTCs, respectively
  Solar dish-engine systems are being developed for use
in emerging global markets for distributed generation,
green power, remote power and grid-connected
applications.
 Individual units, ranging in size from 9 to 25 kW, can
operate independent of power grids in remote sunny
locations pumping water or providing electricity for
locals.
Applications of  However, cost reduction in PV that can be used in similar
application has put dish systems into a difficult
PDS competitive situation.
 Since the integration of storage is rather challenging
into the small dish systems they typically cannot benefit
from any kind of security-of-supply bonus.
 Thus, in today’s CSP markets Dish-Stirling systems have
gained less than 1% market share in terms of installed
power.