A small-scale solar organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is a promising renewable energy-driven power generation technology that can be used in the rural areas of developing countries. A prototype was developed and tested for its performance characteristics under a range of solar source temperatures. The solar ORC system power output was calculated based on the thermal and solar collector efficiency. Th...

The direct steam generation (DSG) in parabolic trough collectors is an attractive option regarding the economic improvement of parabolic trough technology for solar thermal electricity generation in the multi Megawatt range. The European DISS project has proven the feasibility of the direct steam generation under real solar conditions in more than 4000 operation hours. Within the European R&D p...

One of the biggest obstacles to economic profitability of solar water heating systems is the investment cost. Retrofitting existing domestic hot water heaters when a new solar hot water system is installed can reduce both the installation and material costs. In this study, retrofitting existing water heaters for solar water heating systems in Swedish single-family houses was theoretically inves...

The thermal performance of a single pass solar air heater with five fins attached was investigated experimentally. Longitudinal fins were used inferior the absorber plate to increase the heat exchange and render the flow fluid in the channel uniform. The effect of mass flow rate of air on the outlet temperature, the heat transfer in the thickness of the solar collector, and the thermal efficien...

Solar energy systems have emerged as a viable source of renewable energy over the past two or three decades, and are now widely used for a variety of industrial and domestic applications. Such systems are based on a solar collector, designed to collect the sun’s energy and to convert it into either electrical power or thermal energy. In general, the power developed in such applications depends ...

The utility solar power plants were reviewed and classified by two basic groups: direct thermal concentrating solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV). CSP as Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) of 100 MW solar power plants (SPP) is suggested and suitable to provide solar thermal power for Qatar. Although, LFC had enough experience for small projects, it is still need to work in large scale plant s...

Traditional fossil fuels lead to environmental problems and are also depleting. A significant portion of global energy consumption is due to building’s air conditioning. Nowadays there is a great attention toward renewable and sustainable energy sources to support the buildings energy requirements. In this study, a solar cooling machine was designed for a three-floor residential building under ...

In this study a model-based control designed for the operation of a solar power plant is discussed. The simplified physically based model of the plant was developed on the basis of the energy balances including the solar insulation as an input, the heat transferred by the flow of the oil as a working media and the overall heat loss from the plant. The outlet temperature of the collector field i...

Distributed collector solar fields are spatially distributed engineering systems which aim at collecting and storing energy from solar radiation. They are formed by mirrors which concentrate direct incident sun light in a pipe where an oil able to accumulate thermic energy flows. From the control point of view, the objective consists of making the outlet oil temperature to track a reference sig...

This paper discusses the effect of jet impingement of water on a photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collector and compound parabolic concentrators (CPC) on electrical efficiency, thermal efficiency and power production of a PVT system. A prototype of a PVT solar water collector installed with a jet impingement and CPC has been designed, fabricated and experimentally investigated. The efficiency of the ...