Numerical simulation of a cavity receiver enhanced with transparent aerogel for parabolic dish solar power generation

Xueling Li, Renfu Li, Huawei Chang, Lijian Zeng, Zhaojun Xi and Yichao Li

Energy, 2022, vol. 246, issue C

Abstract: Concentrated solar power plays an increasingly significant role in power generation. The photothermal performance of the receiver has a notable impact on the solar thermal power system. Herein, a cavity receiver enhanced with a transparent aerogel for a parabolic dish system is first proposed, and a three-dimensional numerical model considering the absorption and scattering of the solar radiation by the aerogel is established to investigate its photothermal performance. The results show that the transparent aerogel can significantly reduce the heat loss of the cavity receiver. A cavity receiver with a 0.01 m-thick aerogel can reach an efficiency of 85.0%, which is 5.1% higher than that of the cavity receiver without the aerogel. However, as the intercepted solar radiation energy increases, the ability of the aerogel to improve the receiver efficiency is weakened because of the absorption and scattering for solar radiation by the aerogel. In addition, the efficiency of the cavity receiver with the aerogel is less affected by the inclination angle than that of a receiver without the aerogel. Finally, the challenges of applying transparent aerogels in cavity receivers are discussed. This work suggest that the aerogel cavity receiver has application prospects in parabolic dish solar power generation systems.

Keywords: Concentrated solar power; Parabolic dish; Cavity receiver; Transparent aerogel; Efficiency improvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544222002614
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:246:y:2022:i:c:s0360544222002614

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2022.123358

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().