Novel solar concentrator geometry for point focus, low-cost applications

Solar concentrators for small scale applications typically make use of parabolic dishes or approximations thereof. Fully three dimensional parabolic dishes are expensive to manufacture whilst approximations to these dishes, i.e. the compound parabolic concentrator, will either compromise the ability of the system to obtain a point focus or require additional supporting structures to hold the multiple mirror facets in place. This paper will present the novel geometry of a system of mirrors that produces a point focus whilst using two single curvature surfaces. The focusing abilities and tolerances to tracking errors of this novel system will be presented in comparison to parabolic dishes. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.