Optical Analysis of Solar Parabolic Trough Collector with Flat Concentrating Photovoltaic Receiver

In this paper, an optical analysis of parabolic trough collector with flat concentrating photovoltaic receiver is carried out by utilizing non-uniform intensity distribution model of the solar disk. The optical system simulation tool ASAP is used to analyze the parabolic trough system with single axis tracking having a mirror aperture of 1m and length of 3m. The impact of random errors including slope error, apparent change in sun's width, tracking errors on the optical performance of trough system is carried out. The errors are assumed to follow Gaussian (normal) distribution and analyzed statistically. It is found that intercept factor increases with rim angle for given total error of 5, 10 and 20 mrad. Geometrical concentration ratio is varied to see the effect on the intercept factor and compared for various error values. The numerical results show that for De-focused performance (L = 0.1f) the local concentration ratio value is 23 for the 45 degrees rim angle. Numerical results are compared with the analytical data available in the literature which show good agreement.