Performance analysis of roof collector used in the solar updraft tower

The solar collector is the heart of the solar updraft tower as the solar updraft tower's performance depends on the generation of solar energy under the collector roof. Hence, the current research work's objective is to analyze the performance of various roof collector materials used in the solar updraft tower. An experimental set-up of a solar updraft tower was developed and installed in Nagpur, India, in the year 2018. Experimentation was carried out using different roof collector materials like glass, acrylic sheet, polycarbonate sheet and crystalline sheet at a chimney height of 4.8 m and 3.6 m. The results showed that by increasing the 33.33% height of the chimney from 3.6 m to 4.8 m, output power rises 37.92%, 36.13%, 16.78% and 32.18% for glass, acrylic, crystalline and polycarbonate sheet as the collector roof material respectively. The system's output power increases in the range of 5% to 15% with the glass as the roof collector material compared to the acrylic sheet, crystalline sheet, and polycarbonate sheet. The experimental values are compared with analytical values of the power developed, and these were found to be in good agreement, thus validating the experimentation.