Experimental performance of 300 kWth prototype of parabolic trough collector with rotatable axis and irreversibility analysis

Ruilin Wang, Wanjun Qu, Hui Hong, Jie Sun and Hongguang Jin

Energy, 2018, vol. 161, issue C, 595-609

Abstract: Parabolic trough collector (PTC) is the most mature concentrating solar thermal technology. Limited by the cosine effect, annual thermal efficiency of PTC is only 50%. To show the limitations of performance of PTC and find corresponding solutions, an irreversibility analysis of PTC is experimentally conducted. Global exergy destruction is divided into exergy destructions in concentrator and receiver according to process analysis. Experimental results shows that the exergy destruction in concentrator accounts for the largest share. It indicates the process that sunlight being concentrated onto receiver is the key limitation of the performance of PTC. Experiments of the PTC with rotatable axis tracking show that rotatable axis tracking could decrease the exergy destruction in concentrator obviously. The annual exergy efficiency would be expected to be improved by 3% points according to the experimental results. This indicates that rotatable axis tracking is a practical method to improve the performance of PTCs. The influences of azimuth angle of PTC and heat transfer fluid temperature on exergy destruction are also analysed based on experimental data. In this study, the key limitation of the performance of the PTC is revealed and practical methods to decrease the exergy destruction of the PTC are provided.

Keywords: Parabolic trough collector; Experimental test; Rotatable axis tracking; Irreversibility analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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/S0360544218314336
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:161:y:2018:i:c:p:595-609

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.07.136

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 ().