RESEARCH ARTICLE

Optical performance analysis of an innovative linear focus secondary trough solar concentrating system

  • Xiliang ZHANG 1 ,
  • Zhiying CUI 2 ,
  • Jianhan ZHANG 1 ,
  • Fengwu BAI , 2 ,
  • Zhifeng WANG 2
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  • 1. Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; Key Laboratory of Solar Thermal Energy and Photovoltaic System of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; Beijing Engineering Research Center of Solar Thermal Power, Beijing 100190, China
  • 2. Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; Key Laboratory of Solar Thermal Energy and Photovoltaic System of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; Beijing Engineering Research Center of Solar Thermal Power, Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

Received date: 12 Jan 2018

Accepted date: 20 Apr 2018

Published date: 15 Sep 2019

Copyright

2018 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature

Abstract

The parabolic trough solar concentrating system has been well developed and widely used in commercial solar thermal power plants. However, the conventional system has its drawbacks when connecting receiver tube parts and enhancing the concentration ratio. To overcome those inherent disadvantages, in this paper, an innovative concept of linear focus secondary trough concentrating system was proposed, which consists of a fixed parabolic trough concentrator, one or more heliostats, and a fixed tube receiver. The proposed system not only avoids the end loss and connection problem on the receiver during the tracking process but also opens up the possibility to increase the concentration ratio by enlarging aperture. The design scheme of the proposed system was elaborated in detail in this paper. Besides, the optical performance of the semi and the whole secondary solar trough concentrator was evaluated by using the ray tracing method. This innovative solar concentrating system shows a high application value as a solar energy experimental device.

Cite this article

Xiliang ZHANG , Zhiying CUI , Jianhan ZHANG , Fengwu BAI , Zhifeng WANG . Optical performance analysis of an innovative linear focus secondary trough solar concentrating system[J]. Frontiers in Energy, 2019 , 13(3) : 590 -596 . DOI: 10.1007/s11708-018-0602-y

Acknowledgments

This work was financed by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No.2016YFE0201800).
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