Experimental investigation on a parabolic trough solar collector for thermal power generation

Developing solar thermal power technology in an effective manner is a great challenge in China. In this paper an experiment platform of a parabolic trough solar collector system (PTCS) was developed for thermal power generation, and the performance of the PTCS was experimentally investigated with synthetic oil as the circulate heat transfer fluid (HTF). The solar collector's efficiency with the variation of the solar flux and the flow rate of the HTF was identified. The collector efficiency of the PTCS can be in the range of 40%-60%. It was also found that there existed a specified delay for the temperature of the HTF to response to the solar flux, which played a significant role in designing the PTCS. The heat loss effect on collector efficiency was also studied, which was about 220 W/m for the receiver with a 180 C temperature difference between the collector temperature and the ambient temperature, amounting to about 10% of the total solar energy incident on the collector. The encouraging results can provide fundamental data for developing the parabolic trough solar thermal power plant in China.