Optical, geometric and thermal study for solar parabolic concentrator efficiency improvement under Tunisia environment: A case study

Renewable energy generation is becoming more prevalent today. It is relevant to consider that solar concentration technologies contribute to provide a real alternative to the consumption of fossil fuels. The purpose of this work is the characterization of a solar parabolic solar concentrator (SPC) designed, constructed and tested in the Research and Technologies Centre of Energy in Tunisia (CRTEn) in order to improve the performance of the system. Photogrammetry measurement used to analyze the slope errors and to determine hence determining the geometric deformation of the SPC system, which presents an average slope error around 0.0002 and 0.0073 mrad respectively in the center and in the extremities. An optimization of the most performed reflector material has been done by an experimental study of three types of reflectors. A two axes programmed tracking system realized, used and tested in this study. An experimental study is carried out to evaluate the solar parabolic concentrator thermal efficiency after the mechanical and the optical SPC optimization. The thermal energy efficiency varies from 40% to 77%, the concentrating system reaches an average concentration factor around 178. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.