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The combination of photovoltaic (PV) technology, solar thermal technology, and reflective or refractive solar concentrators has been a highly appealing option for developers and researchers since the late 1970s and early 1980s. The result is what is known as a concentrated photovoltaic thermal (CPVT) system which is a hybrid combination of ...
Concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) (also known as concentrating photovoltaics or concentration photovoltaics) is a photovoltaic technology that generates electricity from sunlight. Unlike conventional photovoltaic systems, it uses lenses or curved mirrors to focus sunlight onto small, highly efficient, multi-junction (MJ) solar cells.
The factory was planned to be capable of producing enough solar collectors to provide 200 MW of power per month. [10] In March 2009, the German company Novatec Biosol constructed a Fresnel solar power plant known as PE 1. The solar thermal power plant uses a standard linear Fresnel optical design (not CLFR) and has an electrical capacity of 1.4 MW.
As a thermal energy generating power station, CSP has more in common with thermal power stations such as coal, gas, or geothermal. A CSP plant can incorporate thermal energy storage, which stores energy either in the form of sensible heat or as latent heat (for example, using molten salt), which enables these plants to continue supplying electricity whenever it is needed, day or night. [11]
A solar mirror contains a substrate with a reflective layer for reflecting the solar energy, and in most cases an interference layer. This may be a planar mirror or parabolic arrays of solar mirrors used to achieve a substantially concentrated reflection factor for solar energy systems.
A solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plant or 'heliostat' power plant, is a type of solar furnace using a tower to receive focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors (called heliostats) to focus the sun's rays upon a collector tower (the target).
Each heliostat is made up of 35 6×6 feet (1.8 m) mirror facets, yielding a heliostat overall usable area of 1,245 square feet (115.7 m 2). Total solar field aperture adds up to 12,882,015 square feet (1,196,778 m 2). The molten salt circulates from the tower to a storage tank, where it is then used to produce steam and generate electricity.
The acceptance angle θ of a concentrator may be seen as a measure of how precisely it must track the sun in the sky. The smaller the θ, the more precise the tracking needs to be or the concentrator will not capture the incoming sunlight. It is, therefore, a measure of the tolerance a concentrator has to tracking errors. Optical imperfections