DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION AND PERFORMANCE STUDY OF LOW COST CYLINDRICAL PARABOLIC CONCENTRATOR WITH FLAT HORIZONTAL ABSORBER

Abstract

A low cost cylindrical parabolic concentrator have been designed and implemented from locally available products. The performance comparisons between implemented cylindrical parabolic concentrator and Fresnel mirror concentrator have been done for both cloudy and bright sunny day with flat horizontal absorber. The flat horizontal absorber is mounted with a string of 15 modified grid finger mono crystalline silicon solar cells of size 4.9cm × 4.9cm. The performance of both concentrators is measured in terms of electrical efficiencies and fluctuation of local concentration distributions on a flat horizontal absorber. It has been found that for a bright sunny day the average electrical power output and efficiency of Cylindrical parabolic concentrator and Fresnel mirror concentrators are 21.3 W and 3.4%; 35.3 W and 4.5% respectively. For a semi cloudy day the average electrical power output and efficiency of both concentrators are 13.48 W and 2.7%; 23 W and 3.7% respectively. It has been also observed from the experiment that the local concentration distributions of Fresnel mirror concentrator fluctuated more than that of cylindrical parabolic concentrator. Overall, it has been observed that Fresnel mirror concentrator is more efficient than cylindrical parabolic concentrator.