,A Paper on the Testing Procedures and Protocols for Concentrated Solar Thermal Technologies

Abstract

Interest in solar thermal technologies have grown over the past two decades due to the increasing energy deficit around the globe as well as increasing carbon levels in the atmosphere. Unlike solar photovoltaics, solar thermal technology has the potential to provide both high and low-grade energy which can be used for several applications from household, industrial to electricity generation. This document will focus more on concentrated solar technology (CST) which are essential for the future because they can offer flexibility and potential high dispatch ability in power plant applications. In order to fully utilize CSTs, performance standards of these systems are being setup. These can help to ensure that for a certain CST device, it must meet certain performance criteria in order for it to produce favourable results. Performance standards for these systems also help in allowing interchangeability of certain components. Testing of a CST system is done in several steps depending on the type of system. Usually the most ideal conditions are required to test the performance of a CST system. Clear skies with radiation of 450W/m or above are usually ideal to execute this process. The testing equipment is adjusted so that near steady state conditions are established. CST systems must have high optical efficiency for good performance since they rely on reflection of the direct radiation onto a receiver. Good reflecting materials must be used to guarantee better performance of the system since the system will always have losses which will reduce the expected thermal efficiency of the system. These are some of the parameters and conditions which will be discussed in this paper