A novel type of parabolic trough collector was characterised using a very basic theoretical model. This model looked at an ideal case and provided a basic expectation that was compared to actual measurements. The model showed that greater improvements can be achieved if heat losses to the environment are limited or omitted. This can be achieved by using a glass shield to insulate the receiver in a vacuum to limit the effect wind has and therefore limit convective losses. The experimental characterisation of the PTC consisted of taking six different temperature measurements to better understand the energy balances taking place. Four different configurations were tested, using two different types of concentrator and in each case a receiver that was either unpainted or painted with a semi matte black paint. The different types of concentrator were either stainless steel sheet metal or discretised glass mirror strips, similar to a linear Fresnel collector. Experimental runs were conducted on cloudless days for an hour and 15 minutes. This allowed for three runs to be performed on a single day. Using the theoretical model and comparing it to the experimental data, an efficiency was calculated. This efficiency averaged 14 % when the receiver was unpainted and 13 % when the receiver was painted for the metal sheets. The glass mirror strips had average efficiencies of 54 % and 45 % for an unpainted and painted receiver respectively. The model is very basic and can be improved upon if more variables are taken into consideration, such as convective heat losses. It was also recommended that wind measurements are taken in future tests. A property looked at to evaluate the effectiveness of each type of configuration was the average energy supplied to the thermal heating fluid over the course of an experimental run. For this the averaged values over all the experimental runs conducted for stainless steel sheet metal were 258 W and 332 W for an unpainted and painted pipe respectively. When using the glass mirrors an average energy value of 1049 W was supplied when the pipe was unpainted and an average of 1181 W was gained in the runs conducted after the pipe had been painted. Painting the receiver had little to no effect. The surface temperature of the receiver after painting the pipe was not higher and a slight increase in the energy gained by water was observed. This was explained by inaccuracies during testing as scattered light may have caused an interference on some of the measurements. There were also human inaccuracies in testing which should be omitted in future tests by implementing, for one, a functional tracking system. Future tests should be designed in such a way to completely omit irradiance affecting the thermocouple taking the measurement. Glass mirrors fared far better than the stainless steel sheet metal counterpart. It was recommended that they are used as the concentrator of choice. Higher efficiencies were achieved and in some cases almost four times the energy was supplied to the water in the pipe. This was attributed to a much lower concentrator temperature, on average 11 °C lower than the temperature of the metal sheets, as well as a much better ability to concentrate sunlight onto a single focal point. However, the glass mirror strips were proven to be very fragile and as such, require protection from the elements. While the strips were lighter and caused less of a load during windy conditions, they were susceptible to oscillations from gusty wind. This led to a number of strips breaking and needed to be replaced. By discretising the strips into individual pieces, they had the benefit of only needing to replace the strips that were damaged. This is also true for all future runs. It is still recommended that a tarp be used to protect the glass mirrors. Using glass mirror strips as a concentrator combined LFC technology with PTC technology and a novel PTC design was achieved. The design still required the installation area of a PTC. The novel design was compared to Industrial Solar’s industrial LFC module, LF-11, as it shares many similarities to LFC technology. The peak thermal output of the rig was significantly lower at 346 W/m2 compared to the industrial value of 562 W/m2. However, the noteworthy differences in design and optimisation between the two modules meant the results achieved were comparable. It is expected that better and more comparable results can be realised once the inherent flaws in the design, such as tracking the sun, aperture size and adding a vacuum absorber, are addressed. It is recommended that more research and emphasis is put into this field as an alternative energy power plant for South Africa. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Chemical Engineering / MEng / Unrestricted

In this study, the theoretical performance of a concentrating solar thermal electric system (CSTES) using a field of parabolic trough collectors (PTC) is investigated. The commercial software TRNSYS and the Solar Thermal Electric Components (STEC) library are used to model the overall system design and for simulations. The model was constructed using data from the literature for an existing 30-MW solar electric generating system (SEGS VI) using PTC&rsquo / s in Kramer Junction, California. The CSTES consists of a PTC loop that drives a Rankine cycle with superheat and reheat, 2-stage high and 5-stage low pressure turbines, 5-feedwater heaters and a dearator. As a first approximation, the model did not include significant storage or back-up heating. The model&rsquo / s predictions were benchmarked against published data for the system in California for a summer day. Good agreement between the model&rsquo / s predictions and published data were found, with errors usually less than 10%. Annual simulations were run using weather data for both California and Antalya, Turkey. The monthly outputs for the system in California and Antalya are compared both in terms of absolute monthly outputs and in terms of ratios of minimum to maximum monthly outputs. The system in Antalya is found to produce30 % less energy annually than the system in California. The ratio of the minimum (December) to maximum (July) monthly energy produced in Antalya is 0.04.

A predominant amount of energy needed in the industrial sector is in the form of heat. A significant number of industries in the world still relies on fossil fuels for meeting their heat requirements. A transition to renewable energy for heating needs is at a snail's pace due to fossil fuel lock-in, cost superiority of conventional fuels, and less government support for renewable technology for thermal requirements. The dairy industry is one of the sectors that need heat energy for its production process. This study deals with a techno-economic analysis on the integration of parabolic trough collectors in the dairy industry. The thesis finds the barriers for solar-thermal collectors to evolve in the dairy sector and the viewpoint of the dairy industry towards the acceptance of solar thermal for meeting their thermal needs. From a literature review, it is observed that the need for dairy product will increase in the coming year. To meet the demand, the production process has to be increased. For sustainable production, companies have to rely on environment-friendly energy sources to meet the thermal demand. In the thesis work, it was also found that for several solar fractions, the LevelizedCost of Heat (LCoH) of solar-assisted heating system is less than the LCoH of the fossil-fueled conventional boiler. Therefore, it is economically viable to integrate solar thermal collectors in the dairy industry. The project also compares the LCoHof solar-assisted heating system when solar integration is done at a) feed water heating, b) direct steam generation, and c) process integration. The effect of integration point on the solar fraction, LCoH, and carbon mitigation potential is presented for a real case dairy unit in Dubai. The simulations are performed using a dynamic simulation tool. Results show that minimum LCoH and solar fraction are achieved for process integration. The process integration results in up to 90 % of the solar fraction. Through process integration, the LCoH of the conventional boiler can be reduced by 60%.

In Sweden, the residential and industrial energy demand is provided by a significant part of district heating. In a decarbonization plan to reduce the CO2 emissions, the integration of a large-scale solar system in the district heating can be a suitable option. The most used types of collectors are flat plate collectors (FPC), for which efficiency drops at high temperature levels. Parabolic through collectors (PTC) have seen increased interest in later years, due to their higher efficiency at higher temperature levels, which could improve system performance both energetically and economically. A hybrid concept using a combination of FPC and PTC for a solar thermal system has previously been studied for a solar district heating system in Denmark, with the aim to maximize the solar production by operating the solar collectors in the temperature ranges where they excel. The first aim of this thesis was to adapt the hybrid solar system in a district heating system for a Swedish case study and to evaluate if the hybrid optimization studied has similar positive effects in the overall thermal production of the system in Sweden, as it did in Denmark. The second aim of this thesis was to investigate the use of photovoltaic thermal collectors (PVT) instead of FPC for parts of the solar thermal system. With PVT, a single solar collector module allows for simultaneous production of heat and electricity and integration of photovoltaic thermal collectors in the solar assisted district heating could improve the overall performance of the system, both in terms of energy production and economical gain.The study was performed using the simulation tool TRNSYS based on a model developed in a danish case study. It was performed a parametric analysis on the percentage of share of the different types of solar collectors in the total area. The results given from the simulations have been used to carry out an economic evaluation based on the levelized cost of substituted energy, the annual operation and maintenance costs, and the marginal operational cost difference between a conventional district heating system supplied by a boiler only and a solar assisted district heating system. Based on the results found, it has been proved that a greater proportion of parabolic trough collectors in the solar field contribute to a greater production of thermal energy but also to higher expenses in the economy of the project. The best configuration which balanced these two factors was composed by 70 % of flat plate collectors and 30 % of parabolic trough collectors, based on the total area. The integration of photovoltaic thermal has been demonstrated to be not cost-effective for the studied location compared to the optimized ratio of FPC to PTC, mainly due to the high and uncertain price of the new technology. The use of photovoltaic thermal system is not yet widely developed in projects and there are only a few existing projects in operation today. In the future, the development of photovoltaic thermal in solar assisted district heating projects might have a higher realizable economic potential due to the industry learning curve, but more studies will need to be performed on this.

Reducing carbon emissions in our societies requires a massive shift towards renewables. In Sweden, biomass is the dominant source for the district heat production, but growing demand for biomass in other sectors may cause pressure on it. In this context, this thesis explores the possibility to supply heat with solar parabolic thermal collectors to a district heating system in Kosta, a locality in Lessebo municipality, Kronoberg county. The simulations and calculations are based on the locally available hourly data of weather conditions, supply and return temperatures of district heat and heat demand profiles. The energy production as well as the profitability of the installation is evaluated through the calculation of carbon abatement costs, considering that heat supplied from solar collectors spares biomass which can be made available for decarbonating the power sector. Results have shown that a solar installation that cover most of the heat demand during the months of summer, thus 10% of the annual heat demand, can be profitable. This study also investigates different scenarios with increased costs for the biomass resource to simulate the growing pressure around this resource and concludes that with growing costs of the biomass resource, solar application will become more attractive, allowing to make larger solar district heating plants profitable.

Parabolrinnen-Kraftwerke sind zurzeit die am häufigsten zum Einsatz kommende und wirtschaftlichste Technologie solarthermisch konzentrierender Systeme (Concentrated Solar Power – CSP) und gehören zu den linienfokussierenden Systemen [1]. In Spanien stellen die solarthermischen Parabolrinnen-Kraftwerke Andasol 1–3 mit einer Kollektorfläche von ca. 150 Millionen m² bereits 150 MW zur Verfügung, mit denen ca. 200.000 Einwohner jährlich mit Strom versorgt werden können [2]–[4]. Das Solarfeld besteht aus ca. 150 m langen, in Reihe angeordneten Kollektoren, die aus einzelnen Parabolrinnen-Kollektormodulen zusammengefasst und im Tagesverlauf der Sonne nachgeführt werden. Die Lagerung erfolgt an den Modulrändern im Schwerpunkt des Kollektormoduls, der mit der Rotationsachse zusammenfällt. Bisher werden die Kollektoren überwiegend als filigranes Stahlfachwerk mit über die Aperturweite parabelförmig, uniaxial gekrümmten und punktuell gestützten Spiegelelementen ausgeführt. Bei der Assemblierung der Stahlfachwerke und der Spiegelelemente ist schon im Bauzustand durchgehend eine hohe Präzision gefordert, um eine maximale Solarstrahlenkonzentration der einfallenden direkten solaren Strahlung auf ein in der Fokallinie befindliches Absorberrohr sicherzustellen [5]. In diesem wird ein Wärmeträgermedium, zumeist Thermoöl, auf eine Prozesstemperatur von ca. 400 °C erhitzt. In einem nachgeschalteten konventionellen Kraftwerksblock wird mittels Dampfturbine Elektrizität erzeugt. Das bisher kommerziell meist genutzte Kollektormodul ist der EuroTrough mit einer Aperturweite von ca. 5,80 m und einer Modullänge von 12 m [6], [7] (Bild 1), welches als Benchmark für die erste Förderphase des Projekts diente. Zur Verbesserung der Wirtschaftlichkeit zielen bisherige Entwicklungen auf eine Vergrößerung der Spiegelfläche zur Steigerung des Wirkungsgrades über einen erhöhten geometrischen Konzentrationsgrad, definiert als das Verhältnis von Reflektor- zu Absorptionsfläche, ab. Module wie der UltimateTrough und der SpaceTube erreichen dies durch die Vergrößerung der Aperturweite auf 7,5 m bzw. 8 m [8], [9]. Ein alternatives Strukturkonzept aus stahlfaserverstärkten Betonfertigteilen der Schweizer Firma Airlight mit einer Aperturweite von 9,7 m besteht aus durch Luftdruck in parabolische Form gebrachten Spiegelfolien als Reflektorsystem und wurde bisher in einem Pilot-Kraftwerk in Ait-Baha, Marokko, umgesetzt [10]. Wesentliche Arbeiten der zweiten Förderphase sind daher – dem Trend zu größerer Apertur folgend – an der visionären Entwicklung von Parabolschalen mit Öffnungsweiten von bis zu 10 m ausgerichtet. [Aus: Einleitung] / Parabolic trough power plants are currently the most frequently used and most economical technology of solar thermal systems (Concentrated Solar Power – CSP) and belong to the linear focus collector types [1]. In Spain, the solar thermal parabolic trough power plants Andasol 1–3 with a collector area of approx. 150 million m² already provide 150 MW, which means that approx. 200,000 inhabitants can be annually supplied with electricity [2]–[4]. The solar field consists of approx. 150 m long collectors arranged in rows, which are combined from individual parabolic trough collector modules and track the sun during the course of the day. The bearings are located at the edges of the module in the centre of gravity of the collector module, which corresponds to the axis of rotation. Up to now, the collectors have mainly been designed as a steel framework with parabolic, uniaxially curved and pointwise supported mirror elements. During the assembly of the steel framework and the mirror elements, high precision is required throughout the manufacturing in order to ensure a maximum solar radiation concentration of the incident direct solar radiation on an absorber tube located in the focal line [5]. A heat transfer medium, usually thermal oil, is heated to a process temperature of approx. 400 °C in the absorber tube. Electricity is generated in a downstream conventional power plant unit by means of a steam turbine. The most commercially used collector module is the EuroTrough with an aperture width of approx. 5.80 m and a module length of 12 m [6], [7] (Fig. 1), which served as a benchmark for the first funding phase of the project. In order to improve economic efficiency, previous developments have aimed to increase the size of the mirror surface in order to increase efficiency by a higher geometric degree of concentration, defined as the ratio of reflector surface to absorption surface. Modules like the UltimateTrough and the SpaceTube achieve this by increasing the aperture width to 7.5 m or 8 m, respectively, [8], [9]. An alternative structural concept consisting of prefabricated steel fibre-reinforced concrete elements from the Swiss company Airlight with an aperture width of 9.7 m consists of parabolic mirror foils as a reflector brought into parabolic shape by air pressure and has already been implemented in a pilot power plant in Ait-Baha, Morocco [10]. Therefore, in line with the trend towards a larger aperture, major work in the second funding phase aims at the visionary development of parabolic shells with aperture widths of up to 10 m. [Off: Introduction]

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier expérimentalement les performances énergétiques d'une installation de micro-cogénération solaire. Le prototype réalisé est constitué d'un concentrateur cylindro-parabolique associé à un moteur à vapeur fonctionnant suivant un cycle de Hirn (Rankine avec surchauffe). Les originalités de ce projet sont l’utilisation de l’énergie solaire, renouvelable et inépuisable mais intermittente, la génération directe de vapeur au sein d'un concentrateur de taille réduite (46,5 m²), le système de suivi solaire sur deux axes et le couplage à un moteur à piston non lubrifié. La première partie de l'étude porte sur le concentrateur seul. Son fonctionnement est étudié sur deux journées types (ensoleillée et nuageuse) et son rendement thermique est évalué. La dynamique du système est également abordée notamment par l'étude de sa réponse à des perturbations. Une régulation de type boucle ouverte a été mise en place et validée. La seconde partie concerne la caractérisation du moteur seul. Des essais ont été menés avec une puissance de source chaude stable puis variable. À partir des résultats obtenus, un modèle empirique est développé, puis exploité dans le cadre d'une étude paramétrique du moteur. Cette étude montre l'influence importante du ratio de pression et de la vitesse de rotation sur le rendement. Dans la dernière partie, les performances globales (rendement, puissances électrique et thermique produites) du micro-cogénérateur sont évaluées. Des essais à pression et à vitesse régulées sont présentés. A partir de cartographies de fonctionnement réalisées à l’aide d’un modèle empirique, une régulation basée sur l'utilisation d'un by-pass est alors mise en place, puis testée. / The objective of this thesis is the experimental study of the energy performances of a micro combined solar heat and power (micro-CHP) unit. The prototype is composed of a solar parabolic trough collector coupled to a Hirn (superheated Rankine) cycle engine. The originalities of this project are the use of solar energy which is renewable and inexhaustible but intermittent, the direct steam generation with a reduced size parabolic trough collector (46.5 m²), the two axis tracking system and the coupling with an oil-free reciprocating steam engine. The first part of this study is focussed on the solar collector. Thermal performances under sunny and cloudy conditions are presented and the thermal efficiency is evaluated. The system dynamic is also investigated through the characterization of the inertia as well as a study of its response to perturbations. Then a control strategy is set up and validated. The second part deals with the characterization of the engine. Tests have been performed with a stable and variable heat source power. From these tests, an empirical model has been developed and used in a parametrical study. This study shows the significant influence of the pressure ratio and of the rotational speed on the efficiency of the engine. In the last part, global performances (efficiency, output thermal and electrical powers) of the entire micro-CHP unit are evaluated. Tests with controlled pressure and speed are presented. From operating maps established from an empirical model, a control strategy based on the use of a by-pass is set up and tested.