IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v96y2016icp253-267.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy concentration limits in solar thermal heating applications

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Qiyuan
  • Shirazi, Ali
  • Zheng, Cheng
  • Rosengarten, Gary
  • Scott, Jason A.
  • Taylor, Robert A.

Abstract

Global demand for heating accounts for more than 50% of primary energy consumption. Thermal energy for such purposes is produced mainly by natural gas, electricity, biomass, geothermal, and solar thermal technologies. Solar energy is an abundant, but low density, resource which can be harvested with little environmental impacts. In order to achieve outputs suitable for commercial and industrial applications, optical concentrators are conventionally required to increase the temperature and efficiency of a solar thermal system's output. In this paper, we instead explore the potential for utilizing energy concentrators to boost the performance of solar thermal collectors. To determine the feasibility of this approach, engineering limitations are established for realistic energy concentrators. Our analysis reveals that maximum effective energy concentration ratios of 176 and 2208 are possible for passive and active energy concentrators, respectively. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of this concept for solar thermal collectors and other low-grade sources of heat.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Qiyuan & Shirazi, Ali & Zheng, Cheng & Rosengarten, Gary & Scott, Jason A. & Taylor, Robert A., 2016. "Energy concentration limits in solar thermal heating applications," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 253-267.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:96:y:2016:i:c:p:253-267
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.12.057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544215017004
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2015.12.057?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Siva Reddy, V. & Kaushik, S.C. & Ranjan, K.R. & Tyagi, S.K., 2013. "State-of-the-art of solar thermal power plants—A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 258-273.
    2. Solangi, K.H. & Islam, M.R. & Saidur, R. & Rahim, N.A. & Fayaz, H., 2011. "A review on global solar energy policy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 2149-2163, May.
    3. Ghosh, Sayantan & Dincer, Ibrahim, 2015. "Development and performance assessment of a new integrated system for HVAC&R applications," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 159-167.
    4. Behar, Omar & Khellaf, Abdallah & Mohammedi, Kamal, 2013. "A review of studies on central receiver solar thermal power plants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 12-39.
    5. Milou Beerepoot & Ada Marmion, 2012. "Policies for Renewable Heat: An Integrated Approach," IEA Energy Papers 2012/11, OECD Publishing.
    6. Mojiri, Ahmad & Taylor, Robert & Thomsen, Elizabeth & Rosengarten, Gary, 2013. "Spectral beam splitting for efficient conversion of solar energy—A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 654-663.
    7. Li, Qi & Flamant, Gilles & Yuan, Xigang & Neveu, Pierre & Luo, Lingai, 2011. "Compact heat exchangers: A review and future applications for a new generation of high temperature solar receivers," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(9), pages 4855-4875.
    8. Khamis Mansour, M., 2013. "Thermal analysis of novel minichannel-based solar flat-plate collector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 333-343.
    9. Shirazi, Ali & Taylor, Robert A. & White, Stephen D. & Morrison, Graham L., 2016. "Transient simulation and parametric study of solar-assisted heating and cooling absorption systems: An energetic, economic and environmental (3E) assessment," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 955-971.
    10. Hepbasli, Arif & Kalinci, Yildiz, 2009. "A review of heat pump water heating systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(6-7), pages 1211-1229, August.
    11. Gu, Xiaoguang & Taylor, Robert A. & Morrison, Graham & Rosengarten, Gary, 2014. "Theoretical analysis of a novel, portable, CPC-based solar thermal collector for methanol reforming," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 467-475.
    12. Chua, K.J. & Chou, S.K. & Yang, W.M., 2010. "Advances in heat pump systems: A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 3611-3624, December.
    13. Mohammed, H.A. & Bhaskaran, G. & Shuaib, N.H. & Saidur, R., 2011. "Heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics in microchannels heat exchanger using nanofluids: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 1502-1512, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Yinfeng & Lu, Beibei & Chen, Haijun & Fan, Hongtu & Taylor, Robert A. & Zhu, Yuezhao, 2017. "Experimental investigation of the thermal performance of a horizontal two-phase loop thermosiphon suitable for solar parabolic trough receivers operating at 200–400 °C," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 289-304.
    2. Li, Qiyuan & Zheng, Cheng & Shirazi, Ali & Bany Mousa, Osama & Moscia, Fabio & Scott, Jason A. & Taylor, Robert A., 2017. "Design and analysis of a medium-temperature, concentrated solar thermal collector for air-conditioning applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 1159-1173.
    3. Guobin Cao & Hua Qin & Rajan Ramachandran & Bo Liu, 2019. "Solar Concentrator Consisting of Multiple Aspheric Reflectors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Qiu, Guodong & Yu, Shipeng & Cai, Weihua, 2021. "A novel heating strategy and its optimization of a solar heating system for a commercial building in term of economy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Poppi, Stefano & Sommerfeldt, Nelson & Bales, Chris & Madani, Hatef & Lundqvist, Per, 2018. "Techno-economic review of solar heat pump systems for residential heating applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 22-32.
    2. Li, Qiyuan & Tehrani, S. Saeed Mostafavi & Taylor, Robert A., 2017. "Techno-economic analysis of a concentrating solar collector with built-in shell and tube latent heat thermal energy storage," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 220-237.
    3. Okoroigwe, Edmund & Madhlopa, Amos, 2016. "An integrated combined cycle system driven by a solar tower: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 337-350.
    4. Mostafavi Tehrani, S. Saeed & Taylor, Robert A., 2016. "Off-design simulation and performance of molten salt cavity receivers in solar tower plants under realistic operational modes and control strategies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 698-715.
    5. Roberto Bruno & Francesco Nicoletti & Giorgio Cuconati & Stefania Perrella & Daniela Cirone, 2020. "Performance Indexes of an Air-Water Heat Pump Versus the Capacity Ratio: Analysis by Means of Experimental Data," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-19, July.
    6. Mostafavi Tehrani, S. Saeed & Shoraka, Yashar & Nithyanandam, Karthik & Taylor, Robert A., 2019. "Shell-and-tube or packed bed thermal energy storage systems integrated with a concentrated solar power: A techno-economic comparison of sensible and latent heat systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 887-910.
    7. Antonijevic, Dragi & Komatina, Mirko, 2011. "Sustainable sub-geothermal heat pump heating in Serbia," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(8), pages 3534-3538.
    8. Aste, Niccolò & Adhikari, R.S. & Manfren, Massimiliano, 2013. "Cost optimal analysis of heat pump technology adoption in residential reference buildings," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 615-624.
    9. Cai, Jingyong & Ji, Jie & Wang, Yunyun & Huang, Wenzhu, 2017. "Operation characteristics of a novel dual source multi-functional heat pump system under various working modes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 236-246.
    10. Tehrani, S. Saeed Mostafavi & Taylor, Robert A. & Saberi, Pouya & Diarce, Gonzalo, 2016. "Design and feasibility of high temperature shell and tube latent heat thermal energy storage system for solar thermal power plants," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA), pages 120-136.
    11. Wei, Min & Fan, Yilin & Luo, Lingai & Flamant, Gilles, 2015. "Fluid flow distribution optimization for minimizing the peak temperature of a tubular solar receiver," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 663-677.
    12. Fabrizio, Enrico & Seguro, Federico & Filippi, Marco, 2014. "Integrated HVAC and DHW production systems for Zero Energy Buildings," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 515-541.
    13. Guo, J.J. & Wu, J.Y. & Wang, R.Z. & Li, S., 2011. "Experimental research and operation optimization of an air-source heat pump water heater," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 4128-4138.
    14. Behar, Omar & Khellaf, Abdallah & Mohammedi, Kamal & Ait-Kaci, Sabrina, 2014. "A review of integrated solar combined cycle system (ISCCS) with a parabolic trough technology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 223-250.
    15. Natanael Bolson & Maxim Yutkin & Tadeusz Patzek, 2023. "Primary Power Analysis of a Global Electrification Scenario," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-20, October.
    16. Sani, Elisa & Mercatelli, Luca & Meucci, Marco & Balbo, Andrea & Musa, Clara & Licheri, Roberta & Orrù, Roberto & Cao, Giacomo, 2016. "Optical properties of dense zirconium and tantalum diborides for solar thermal absorbers," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 340-346.
    17. Wanjiru, Evan M. & Sichilalu, Sam M. & Xia, Xiaohua, 2017. "Optimal control of heat pump water heater-instantaneous shower using integrated renewable-grid energy systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 332-342.
    18. Zhu, Yong & Zhai, Rongrong & Qi, Jiawei & Yang, Yongping & Reyes-Belmonte, M.A. & Romero, Manuel & Yan, Qin, 2017. "Annual performance of solar tower aided coal-fired power generation system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 662-674.
    19. Li, Qing & Bai, Fengwu & Yang, Bei & Wang, Zhifeng & El Hefni, Baligh & Liu, Sijie & Kubo, Syuichi & Kiriki, Hiroaki & Han, Mingxu, 2016. "Dynamic simulation and experimental validation of an open air receiver and a thermal energy storage system for solar thermal power plant," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 281-293.
    20. Nizetic, S. & Coko, D. & Marasovic, I., 2014. "Experimental study on a hybrid energy system with small- and medium-scale applications for mild climates," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 379-389.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:96:y:2016:i:c:p:253-267. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.