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SOLAR RECEIVER OPTIMIZATION FOR SOLAR THERMAL ENERGY COLLECTORS
WO21148703
In the context of the solar thermal industry, parabolic trough technology is the one that arouses the most commercial interest due to its technological maturity and the reduced risk to be assumed by investors in its implementation. Currently all solar collector receivers have the common problem that all designs use a vacuum chamber to reduce thermal losses by convection. These seals, in addition to being expensive, are vulnerable to seal failure, degrading the vacuum level in the chamber and triggering thermal losses, increasing the failure rate of the receivers in the installation. In the present invention, a new, more robust receiver design is provided for parabolic trough collectors with an edge angle of less than 90 degrees operating in a high temperature range. The new receiver configuration allows the lens to concentrate the rays from the primary reflector (parabolic section mirror) so that a significant fraction of them enter the cavity of the metal absorber. In addition to the aforementioned optical utility of the lens, it has allowed the reduction to negligible levels of thermal losses of a convective nature without the need for welding or selective alpha-efficiency coatings.
The new configuration of the receiver increases its half-life, which is the most vulnerable element in this type of solar installation, since it allows the vacuum inside the glass cavity to be maintained more easily and for much longer periods of time. to use glass-metal welds. In addition, the area emitting thermal radiation is drastically reduced, not requiring high-efficiency selective coatings. By achieving an increase in the average life of these elements, the payback period of these plants would be prolonged and their cost of energy production would be reduced. On the other hand, all the pieces that make up the design can be assembled in-situ at the plant, which increases the economy of scale in the manufacture of each of the pieces and significantly facilitates maintenance tasks. The present invention corresponds to the technical field of concentrating solar energy, specifically to the technology of solar thermal receivers with a linear focus, providing a new, more robust receiver design for long-term parabolic trough collectors.