Estimation of incident radiation on a novel spherical solar collector

B. Samanta and Khamis Rajab Al Balushi

Renewable Energy, 1998, vol. 14, issue 1, 241-247

Abstract: Most solar collectors commonly used are of the flat-plate type. In the present work, a novel type of solar collector, namely, spherical collector, is proposed. It consists of a stationary spherical body with a cover and an absorbing surface. The receiving hemisphere, normal to the incident beam radiation, keeps on shifting with the apparent position of the sun. The main advantage of this type of collector is its ability to effectively track the sun, without any actual mechanical movement. Both daily and hourly variations of incident radiation on such a spherical solar collector are calculated on the basis of available data. The results are compared with that on an equivalent flat-plate collector for different angles of tilt and latitude. From the results, the spherical collectors are found to be more effective in receiving solar radiation over equivalent flat-plate counterparts throughout the year.

Keywords: Solar collectors; spherical collector; self-tracking collector; incident radiation; solar energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148198000731
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:renene:v:14:y:1998:i:1:p:241-247

DOI: 10.1016/S0960-1481(98)00073-1

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

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