Design of parabolic solar concentrator to improve the optical. Lighttools solar design utilities as the need for clean renewable energy continues to grow, more attention is being focused on the development of more efficient solar energy collection systems. Optical design and characterization of solar concentrators. In general, a solar concentrator can be considered to be composed of three components. The primary concentrators of a solar concentrator system are those. Most optical ray tracing programs are concerned with figuring aberation, not collection efficiency, and they assume optical components are sequential like a series of lenses and mirrors.
The design of the solarbeam blends art with form and functionality. New solar concentrator design nsf national science. Their used ray tracing software for evaluation of the optical. Hi, i want to design a parabolic dish solar concentrator for my final. In designing a hybrid solar ptc system, the design software has to consider numerous parameters such as climatic and environmental e. The idea of cpv is to use optical light concentrators to increase the incident power on solar cells. Lighttools solar design utilities solar optics design. The 9m solar concentrator solar dish blends rugged design with art and functionality. The results show that adding involute can effectively avoid light escaping from the bottom. Not just solar design, but it also helps you calculate an ideal combination of solar modules and inverters. From personalized company branding to integrated lending options all within the proposals, our software streamlines the process, optimizing deal closure and efficiency. Diy open source solar concentrator tutorials now available.
Design of solar dish concentration by using matlab program and. This is ideal in space, where the sun is a single light source. The results show that adding involute can effectively avoid light escaping from the bottom, which improves the. Renewable energy resources, solar energy, solar concentrator. The design and performance of each concentrator will be explained and compared. Photopia has also been used in solar applications, including pv concentrators and stirling engine concentrators.
Soltrace is a software tool developed at the national renewable energy laboratory nrel to model concentrating solar power csp systems and analyze their optical performance. The materials are easily obtainable and the design is simple and straight forward the concentrators can be made with readily available materials and simple tools. Modeling the optical behavior of reflecting solar concentrators, sandia. A new type of concentrator design for tubular absorbers is presented. The increase in investment would be from 2 billion worldwide to 92. The goal of this project is to design, build, model, and test a concentrating solar collector. The basic design of several types of csp system is presented alongside their advantages and. So, i am starting to make desing for a solar prabolic concentrator in solidworks 2016, can i find here someone to help me or to give me some ideas or advises or how i can make this design ideas tuorials for example. Modeling the optical behavior of reflecting solar concentrators, sandia national. The concentrator is designed by improving the light receiving rate of a parabola when the incident angle changes within 020 by adding involute, shifting the involute up, and changing the shape of the parabolic top. Solar concentrators an overview sciencedirect topics. A detailed study of 7 unique solar pv design and simulation software s that were listed in a 2015 publication by mnreteri. Solar ray collector with a circular concentrator it is a type of collector which has a moving receiver.
You can use system advisor model sam software, the software have the. As far as i can tell, there is no open source ray tracing program suitable for solar concentrator design. Below is a list of free solar calculators that can be used in the design of solar pv systems. Solar fire provides detailed plans and howto instructions for building three different sizes of concentrating solar collectors. This paper presents an offaxisfocused solar concentrator system consisting of 190 aspheric reflectors, where the aperture radius of each reflector is 10 cm, and vertices of all reflectors are orderly arranged in the same plane.
Many solarspecific software options are coming to the market with the promise of reducing costs, improving accuracy and allowing the industry to scale. The creator of a diy solar concentrator system has posted detailed tutorials for building his open source design, making it available for anyone to replicate or improve upon. The concentration ratio of the variable solar concentrator is varied to maximize the energy collection potential of the solar energy collector in response to fluctuations in incoming solar irradiation to best match the. Free solar pv calculators, design tools and software. Online solar permit package software for residential installers. Their goal were to design solar concentrator for production of portable hot water in rural india. For calculation of necessary points that define parabola public domain software. Solar concentrator for stirling engine is required and i need complete design. Stress point simulation is performed on all major components to ensure maximum strength and durability. Photopia is written and distributed by lti optics, llc formerly lighting technologies, inc. Ray tracing study to determine the characteristics of the solar. It was concluded that structured reflectors are used at their largest benefit if they are applied in new concentrators designed for structures. Concentrators work best when there is a single source of light and the concentrator can be pointed right at it.
Mechanical design of a low cost parabolic solar dish. The paper also includes a description of the software. The study found that concentrated solar power could account for up to 25% of the worlds energy needs by 2050. Reif department of computer science, duke university, durham, nc 27707 usa and.
For the solar concentrating system for the integration with buildings, the static solar concentrator is one of the core components. Solar concentrators put one of these lenses on top of every solar cell. The goal of this paper is to present optical design of a lowtech solar concentrator that can. A new solar concentrator design from an electrical engineering ph. The design was verified using soltrace, a software package for tracing the solar ray. The design takes advantage of a phenomenon called total internal reflectionthe angle at which a beam of light inside an optical material will reflect back into. Lighttools includes specialized utilities to help designers model and. Parabolic shape of solar concentrator is obtained by entering and coordinates for selected points. A multisurface solar concentrator is proposed in this study. Hybrid2 is a probabilistictime series computer model, using time series. This paper gives an insight into the design of concentrating solar power csp systems. Design and analysis of a highefficiency, costeffective solar concentrator john h.
During the test periods, the solar energy available was 60 to 70 percent that of normal. As the solar industry matures, it finds better ways to do things. The use of solar energy requires optimizing each part of a photovoltaic system. Spain is the leader in concentrated solar power technology, with more than 50 governmentapproved projects in the works. What software could i use to design and simulate a thermal system like the one depicted in the. The design takes advantage of a phenomenon called total internal reflectionthe angle at which a beam of light. It will also analyse on some of the existing solar concentrators used in the solar technology for the past four decades. Design and optical evaluation of a novel asymmetric lens. The materials are easily obtainable and the design is simple and straight forward the concentrators can be made with readily available materials and. The scope of this paper is to look at the designing procedures and analysis of a solar thermal parabolic trough concentrator by simulation utilizing meteorological.
Software and codes for analysis of concentrating solar power. In the design of the static solar concentrator, the optical simulation based on the software is a key stage, which can provide an effective guarantee for the structure optimization. Nrel that can be used to analyze and design solar power optical systems. In solar power plant applications that require only direct heat to power a system such as a stirling engine, the solarbeam focuses all the concentrated solar power on. Parabolic shape of solar concentrator is obtained by entering x and y coordinates for selected points. Asap nextgen, a product of more than 30 years of continuous development, is not only the next step in the evolution of the asap program, but a complete reimagining of the asap environment. Deep space 1 was the first spacecraft powered by a refractive concentrator design like scarlet, and also utilized multijunction solar cells, or cells made of multiple layers of different materials. Fronius nfigurator is a free solar design software for windows. Design the initial plan for a solar concentrator was to use a semispherical surface covered with many small sections of mirror to form a segmented, spherical concentrator. Microlens arrays solar concentrator design using zemax. Could you suggest any ray tracing software for analysis of. Optical design of a solar parabolic thermal concentrator. In order to understand the design of different high temperature solar concentrators, this chapter gives an comprehensive insight into the fundamentals of optical concentration systems by introducing the definition of the concentration ratio and its limits and gives examples of imaging and nonimaging systems. An adaptive solar concentrator system comprising a controller, a solar energy collector and a solar concentrator with variable concentration ratio is disclosed.
Lighttools includes specialized utilities to help designers model and analyze solar collection systems. Although ideally suited for solar applications, the code can also be used to model and characterize many general optical systems. Optical design and characterization of solar concentrators for photovoltaics 4 ruption of the translational symmetry when the microstructured reflectors were introduced. Solartron is the designer and manufacturer behind the revolutionary solarbeam tm parabolic. Design, construction, and test of a miniature parabolic. Meticulous attention to detail starts from the mechanical design stage. Photopia optical design software photopia is a commercial optical engineering raytracing software program for the design and analysis of nonimaging optical systems. Design and analysis of a highefficiency, costeffective. The design results have been verified with the optical design software zemax. An experimental solar concentratordryer was designed and constructed for use by rural farmers.
These calculators are free to use or download, all excellent resources for anyone looking to install or understand more about solar pv systems. In this type of concentrator, there are mirror strips that produce a narrow image which follows a circular path, the receiver moves along the circular way so that it. A characteristic of ideal nonimaging concentrators is the fact that the theoretical reflector required in practical solar collectors leads to large optical losses and reduction in optical efficiencies. What is the most userfriendly raytracing simulation software for. Design description of solar parabolic concentrator mechanical design of the solar parabolic concentrator is done in 3d design software catia, dassault systems, usa. Use fill zones to instantly create standardized pv systems. Energies free fulltext solar concentrator consisting. The solar concentrator has been tested for 6 years in harsh winter climates to desert conditions to.
Concentrated solar power also called concentrating solar power and csp systems use mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight, or solar thermal energy, onto a small area. Photopia uv optical design software with solidworks addin. Such model can be installed in rural areas which are not connected to governmental grid. Comparison of solar concentrators technical report.
Solo solar proposal software and roofing operations. Mechanical design of the solar parabolic concentrator is done in 3d design software catia, dassault systemes, usa. With many engineers and architects designing buildings of the. The dryer was tested and evaluated using sliced plantain and shelled maize.
562 667 781 1367 1522 627 1357 1242 1117 1146 1346 254 292 471 381 1535 747 1282 421 390 593 865 400 1145 440 1022 152 1250 33 1299 1243 921 1353 674 197 1189