PROCEEDINGS OF ECOS 2012 - THE 25TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EFFICIENCY, COST, OPTIMIZATION, SIMULATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF ENERGY

SYSTEMS JUNE 26-29, 2012, PERUGIA, ITALY

A Novel Non-Tracking Solar Collector for High Temperature Application

Abstract:
A parabolic trough solar collector is improved the efficiency by a novel design of compound parabolic trough solar collector where the aim is three-fold. Firstly, one aim is to achieve day-long collection efficiency without the need for mechanical tracking of the sun. Secondly, the collector must be designed to operate efficiently under diffuse solar irradiation as experienced for example in rainforest climate. Thirdly, one seeks to achieve as a high an output temperature as possible. Newly developed system consists of multiple compound parabolic troughs facing the sun at different angles. The salient feature of this design is that the system can collect the sunlight energy at every angle without any moving parts at the same time can receive the diffused light, the maximum efficiency of the collector is 32% and has an ability to achieve high output temperature, the maximum temperature at header of evacuated tube is 235 degrees Celsius, and is therefore suitable for high temperature application such as industrial uses or cooling application.

Keywords:
solar energy, compound parabolic trough, non-tracking solar collector.

1. Introduction
A parabolic trough is a type of solar thermal energy collector which is generally used in solar power plants. The solar collector is constructed as a long parabolic trough with a tube running its length at the focal point. Sunlight is reflected by the trough and concentrated on the tube filled with synthetic oil, which heats to 300-400 degrees Celsius [1-5]. The trough is usually aligned on a north-south axis, and rotated to track the sun as it moves across the sky each day. Therefore it seems unavoidable that there needs to be a tracking system that follows the position of the sun. The disadvantage of the parabolic trough solar collector is that concentrating systems require sun tracking to maintain sunlight focus at the collector. The tracking system increases the cost, complexity and the maintenance cost due to the moving parts. This type of solar collector is not preferred in a small residential house. Another problem is an inability to provide power in diffused light conditions, which is due to the fact that the power output from concentrating systems drops in cloudy conditions. As Thailand has a tropical rainforest climate, which causes the ratio of diffused solar radiation to global solar radiation to be rather high (in the range of 31% to 58%) [8], one faces a serious problem in utilizing such a solar collector to collect solar energy, especially in rainforest climate. A parabolic trough solar collector is improved the efficiency by a novel design of compound parabolic trough solar collector which does not contain a solar tracking system and has an ability to collect diffused sunlight by using compound parabolic troughs facing the sun at different angles [67]. The non-tracking parabolic trough solar collectors were presented in ref. [8-20]. The advantage of this design is that there are no moving parts in the system, which leads to reductions in the cost and maintenance. This collector yields higher temperatures than flat plate solar collector and could be used in the residential house, the maximum temperature at header of evacuated tube is 235 degrees Celsius, and is therefore suitable for high temperature application such as industrial uses or cooling application. 466 - 1

2. The Model
In order to design and develop the non-tracking solar collector, the mathematical model of reflection of compound trough is calculated. Let the shape of a parabolic trough be described by the curve y = f(x) on the x-y plane in Fig. 1. The law of reflection states that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection relative to the tangent of the curve y = f(x) at any point (x,y). The slope of this tangent line at point (x,y) is denote by mt = df(x)/dx, the slope of the incident ray by m0 and the slope of the reflected ray by m1.
(x0 ,y ) 0 (x1 ,y ) 1 m0 m1

y = f(x) mt (x,y)

Fig. 1. The reflection of a light ray by a curve y = f(x). is represented an angle of incidence and an angle of reflection. mt, m0 and m1 are slope of a tangent line, an incident ray and a reflected ray respectively. From trigonometry [5], the relationship between the angle between two lines and their relative slopes mt, m0 and m1 is given as

tan =

mt m0 m mt = 1 , 1 + mt m0 1 + mt m1
m0 mt (2 + mt m0 ) . mt2 2mt m0 1

(1)

which yields a slope of the first reflected ray m1 as

(2)

Similarly, the ith reflected rays can be calculated by using the relation mt mi 1 mi mt , = 1 + mt mi 1 1 + mt mi

(3)

where i are integers. From Eq. 1 and Eq. 2, the reflection of a parabolic trough can be simulated as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. The reflection of parabolic trough solar collector at incident angle of 75 degrees where blue and orange lines are incident and 1st reflected rays respectively. The circle is the position of the focus point. 466 - 2

For the incident angle of 75 degrees, the conventional parabolic trough in Fig. 2 cannot receive the reflected rays. Therefore it needs solar tracking system to maintain sunlight at the focus point. The parabolic trough solar collector is designed to have an ability to achieve day-long collection efficiency without the need for mechanical tracking of the sun by using 3 compound parabolic troughs facing the sun at different angles. Using Eq.(1-3), the reflection of non-tracking solar collector at various time are shown in Fig. 3.

12.00 am

1.00 pm

2.00 pm

3.00 pm

Fig. 3. The reflection of three-compound parabolic trough solar collector where blue, orange, green and yellow lines are incident, 1st reflected, 2nd reflected and 3rd reflected rays respectively. The circle in each trough is the position of evacuated tube. The 3-compound parabolic trough shows that it has an ability to receive the sunlight at various time. For 12.00 a.m., the solar collector can collect all reflected rays, the reflected rays in the middle trough are concentrated at the lowest position of the tube and for both side of the middle trough, the reflected rays are concentrated on the higher position inside the tube. When the time changes, the reflected rays move up and down inside a tube. For this principle, this collector can collect the sunlight in any time. However there are some ray losses when the time changes especially after 3.00 p.m. which could be ignored because of very low solar power. The collector is designed to have an ability to collect diffused light. In Fig. 4, compound parabolic trough can receive the incident rays in the period of 80 degrees. This implies that this collector has a probability to collect incident rays from sunlight in both direct and diffused light in the period of 80 degrees at the same time while a conventional parabolic trough can collect the incident rays which are nearly perpendicular to the trough. Although a parabolic trough could provide a high concentration, the parabolic trough could not work effectively under diffused light conditions. The experimental results have shown that the efficiency of the new design of solar collector is higher than parabolic trough under diffuse solar irradiation as shown in Fig.10 and Fig. 11. 466 - 3

80

10

Fig. 4. The reflection of light rays at various angles of the incident rays. This design has an ability to collect incident rays in the period of 80 degrees while the conventional parabolic trough can receive the incident rays in the period of 10 degrees. In this paper, SUNDA vacuum tubes (SEIDO1) are used to receive the concentrated light from the trough. This tube is composed of flat plate absorber as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. The method to place an evacuated tube with flat plate absorber in compound parabolic trough. From Fig. 5, the flat plate absorber which is placed horizontally can receive reflected rays better than the flat plate absorber which is placed vertically and cross shape absorber can collect all rays but there are no cross shape absorber product at the moment. For this reason, flat plate absorber is considered to place horizontally in each trough. 466 - 4

3. Experiment
The solar collector in Fig. 3 has been invented consisting of three compound parabolic troughs made of stainless sheets, oriented at different angles. The solar collector has an overall width of 1 m and a length of 1.9 m, and the evacuated tubes (SUNDA vacuum tube, (SEIDO1)) are placed along its axis. These evacuated tubes are connected to a manifold header pipe and connected with the pump to feed the oil. The flow rate is set at 5 lpm. The collectors are fixed on Earth and aligned along the north-south direction as shown in fig (6-7).

Fig. 6. The novel non-tracking solar collector has an overall width of 1 m and a length of 1.9 m.

W S

N E Fig. 7. Diagram of test arrangement.

The experiment was performed in Bangkok, Thailand. The data was taken during the period of 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. on the 10th, 11th, 12th ,13th and 14th January 2012, The sky was not very clear which lead the solar power is not smooth in any time. The diagram of test arrangement is shown in fig. 7. When the evacuated tubes absorb the sunlight from troughs, the heat from the tubes is transferred to hot oil which flows in the system. The energy of the system can be calculated by [21]

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& QC (t ) = mC (Tout Tin ) ,

(4)

& where t represents time, m and C are flow rate and the specific heat of the thermal oil respectively. The efficiency of the system in any time is

(t ) =

QC , Qin

(5)

where Qin is the solar power. The evacuated tube is placed in the trough and measured the temperature at the header. The maximum temperature at heat pipe is 235 degrees Celsius as shown in Fig. 8 and the maximum temperature of hot oil is 180 degrees Celsius for 0.5 litres of oil as shown in Fig. 9.

1200 1000

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 08:00

SolarEnergy W m2

600 400 200 0 08:00

10:00

12:00 Time

14:00

16:00

Temperature C

800

10:00

12:00 Time

14:00

16:00

Fig. 8. The maximum temperature at the header of evacuated tube plotted against time from 8.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. on the 12th December 2011.

1000

200

800
150

SolarEnergy W m2

600

Temperature C

100

400

200

50

11:00

12:00

13:00 Time

14:00

15:00

16:00

11:00

12:00

13:00 Time

14:00

15:00

16:00

Fig. 9. The hot oil temperature plotted against time from 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. on the 14th November 2011. The maximum temperature is 180 degrees Celsius for 0.5 litres of oil.

From the experiment, the solar power on the 11th ,12th ,13th and 14th of January 2012 in Bangkok had been collected and its average is shown in Fig. 10. The results show that the efficiency of the new-design solar collector at any time is fairly constant, which is similar to the parabolic trough with solar tracking system, while the efficiency of a conventional parabolic trough at any time distributes like a Gaussian curve having its maximum at around 11.30 a.m. as shown in Fig.11. The 466 - 6

three-compound parabolic trough solar collector yields higher temperature than flat plate or evacuated tube solar collector. The average efficiency of solar collector is 25-32% .

1000

50 40

800

Solar Power W m 2

Efficiency

600

30 20 10 0 10 :00 12 :00 Time 14 :00 16 :00

400

200

10 :00

12 :00 Time

14 :00

16 :00

Fig. 10. The average solar power and efficiency of 3-compound parabolic trough plotted against times in the period of 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. on the 10th , 11th ,12th ,13th and 14th January 2012 in Bangkok.

30 25 20
Efficiency

15 10 5 0 09:00

10:00

11:00 Time

12:00

13:00

14:00

Fig. 11. The parabolic trough in Fig. 4 has been invented. The average efficiency of parabolic trough plotted against time from 9.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. on the 4th, 6th and 8th January 2010[9]

4.Conclusions
The new-design of solar collector has an ability to collect the sunlight at every angle, similar to the parabolic trough with a solar tracking system. This solar collector has an ability to receive the diffused light, and this make it suitable for using in all kinds of climate. There are no moving parts in the system, which results in the reductions in the cost of the system, the cost of maintenance and complexity. This collector needs only 3 evacuated tubes while SUNDA collector (SEIDO1) needs 8 tubes at the same area. This collector yields higher temperatures than flat plate or evacuated tube solar collector. The maximum temperature at heat pipe is 235 C and oil temperature is 180 C. It is, therefore, suitable for high temperature application such as industrial uses or cooling application.

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5.Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the National Research University Project of CHE, the Ratchaphiseksomphot Endoment Fund (Project No. EN1180I), 2-V research program of National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) and Energy Research Institute of Chulalongkorn University for the financial supports. We also would like to thank Mr. Narong Amornpitakpunt, AMP METALWORKS [Thailand] Co.,Ltd for his help for inventing the 1st and 2nd prototype of solar collector.

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