Dish solar concentrating reflection system

9.1. Introduction Dish concentrating solar power (CSP) systems use parabo.loidal mirrors that track the sun and focus solar energy into a receiver where it is absorbed and transferred to a heat engine/generator or else into a heat transfer fluid that is transported to a ground-based plant.

The dish concentrator and cavity receiver are optical devices for collecting the solar energy in DS-CSP system; to determine the geometric parameters of dish concentrator is one of the important steps for design and development of DS-CSP system, because it directly affects the optical performance of the cavity receiver.

(Wu et al., 2010) developed a dish concentrator integrated with an alkali metal thermal to the electrical transformer (AMTET) through a linking heat exchanger as seen in Fig. 25. A thermal heat-pipe receiver was chosen to isothermally convert the concentrated solar energy from the parabolic dish to the AMTET.

(Barreto and Canhoto, 2017) performed dynamic numerical modeling for a small solar-powered dish-Stirling system to enhance the concentrator optical efficiency and determine the power output and efficiency. In this study, the concentrated intensity flux, the thermal analysis of the receiver, the Stirling engine cycle, and the generator were modeled.

The dish concentrator must be oriented towards the sun. Usually, losses in this technology are associated with the imperfections of dish alignment and non-ideality of reflection. The engine that converts the concentrated solar energy into electricity is placed at the focal point.

The developed system consists of a solar dish concentrator, photovoltaic thermal panels, and HDH desalination unit as shown in Fig. 38. The HDH unit contains an open-water closed-air flow configuration. The concentrator of the solar dish is used as a water heater.