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Performance Evaluation od a Concentrator Photovoltaic/Thermal Hybrid Prototype
Dalarna University, School of Technology and Business Studies, Environmental Engineering.
2004 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years))Student thesis
Abstract [en]

Concentrator photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) hybrid systems produce both electricity and thermal energy; this increases the overall efficiency of the system and reduces the cost of solar electricity. These systems use concentrators which are optical devices that concentrate sunlight onto solar cells and reduce expensive solar cell area.This work deals with the performance evaluation of a concentrator PV/T hybrid system prototype with a single-axis tracking single-mirror two-stage (SMTS) concentrator and a mono-crystalline solar cell string bonded to a thermal receiver. The concentration ratio of system is between 11 and 5.6, and was measured by a customized circuit added to a micrologger instrument. The optical efficiency of the concentrator is 33% and was measured using short-circuit current method. This value is less compared to a SMTS system which has a theoretical maximum optical efficiency of 90%. The average thermal efficiency is 15% and the electrical efficiency is 4.6% under corrected solar concentration ratio of 17.1. The overall energy efficiency of the system is 19.6%. The low efficiency is mainly explained by improper reflector geometry. The prototype’s concentrator was built using geometrical ray tracing which is generally used for drawing conic sections. However, for surfaces other than conic, like SMTS, the surface interaction of the incident rays at two or more points make ray tracing a computationally intensive process and often the surfaces are far away from ideal surface. This work includes a review of current concentrator PV/T hybrid activities which shows that a variety of systems are in use and the combined thermal and electrical efficiency one such system has approached up to 70%. A wide range of concentrator reflector material are available for solar energy use, but long term performance and durability of low cost materials for application in high concentration systems which operates at high temperature need to be studied thoroughly.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Borlänge, 2004. , p. 60
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-1369OAI: oai:dalea.du.se:1369DiVA, id: diva2:517869
Uppsok
Technology
Supervisors
Available from: 2005-08-12 Created: 2005-08-12 Last updated: 2012-04-24Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
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  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
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Output format
  • html
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  • asciidoc
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