We are excited to upload the revised version of our conference paper for the IHT 2021. The “12th National Conference for Renewable Energy Sources” is organized by the Institute of Solar Technology and will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece if the pandemic measures permit so.
Our paper is focused at the results obtained in WP2 “Optical design and modeling of systems and tracking methods”. The optical simulation results obtained from two software packages on the “SCO1” configuration are discussed.
The SCO1 system is based on a system studied theoretically and experimentally by Giannoulis and Tripanagnostopoulos at the Physics Department of the University of Patras, in Greece. The prototype consists of a static cylindro-parabolic concentrator and a flat absorber with a selective coating. The concentrator can be eitner symmetric (a) or a-symmetric (b,c).
SCO1 is an improved version of this system, where the absorber and can be enclosed in a vacuum tube and its surface can be treated with selective coating for improved efficiency. The absorber is tracking the concentrated sun rays either in a linear track or in a non linear one, aiming to take advantage of the of the higher concentration areas below.
UPatras focused on extracting the optimal equation of motion for the absorber, while SIJ investigated the concept of absorber movement out of the system’s axis of symmetry.
The results of both software packages are in agreement with each other for the same test cases, while the inclined movement shows improved overall performance. As a conclusion, the SCO1 system has an improved efficiency compared to the older system version.