Due to the dramatic advances in commercial multi-junction solar cells with 40% conversion efficiency, solar concentrator capable of delivering flux levels of hundreds to thousands of suns at high collective efficiency is the key factor for the success of novel Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV)...

Parabolic solar dish concentrator with sphere receiver is less studied. We present an analytic function to calculate the intercept factor of the system with real sun brightness distribution and Gaussian distribution, the results indicate that the intercept factor is related to the rim angle of...

We present a general method, based on controlled static aberrations induced in the reflectors, to boost receiver performances in solar concentrators. Imaging mirrors coupled with dense arrays suffer from severe performance degradation since the solar irradiance distribution is bell-shaped:...

Parabolic trough collectors were investigated, applying the study results to a plant prototype installed in Florence (Italy) for residential supply. Ray tracing simulations examined optical characteristics and collection performance on the base of prototype geometry and functionality. The...

The optical design of a concentration system for a solar furnace is studied, proposing several possible solutions. The foreseen use of this solar furnace is to test components and methodologies for solar applications. The analysis assesses and compares the optical performances of several...

In this paper a highly efficient solar concentrating mirror is presented. A part of the aspherical cylinder's inner wall defined by a set of specific coefficients a2, a4, a6, a8, a10, a12, a14, a16 and C is used as reflective surfaces of concentrating mirror. Based on the particular aspherical...

Optical system design has a significant impact on solar power plant efficiency. It can be advantageous to be able to very precisely adapt mirror shapes in order to improve energy yield. In this article it is investigated whether it is feasible to use non-uniform rational Béziers splines (NURBS)...

The tracking and ray tracing equations for the target-aligned heliostat for solar tower power plants have been derived in this paper. Based on the equations, a new module for analysis of the target-aligned heliostat with an asymmetric surface has been developed and incorporated in the code HFLD....

The ray tracing equations for the beam-down solar concentrator have been derived in this paper. Based on the equations, a new module for the simulation of the beam-down solar concentrating system has been developed and incorporated into the code HFLD. To validate the ray tracing equations, a...

This study aims to determine the necessity of applying a mirror coating on the side of a truncated solid dielectric CPC (compound parabolic concentrator) since ray tracing analysis has revealed that part of the incoming rays do not undergo total internal reflection, even within the half...