Studying the feasibility of a compound parabolic concentrator for solar cooling

  • Khaled Khaled, 7th October University, Libya
  • Prof Abdullatif Zgalei, Al-fateh University, Libya
  • Prof Omar Mahgjup, 7th October University, Libya
  • The energy demand for cooling and air-conditioning has increased heavily during the last years. In order to reduce the electricity consumption, solar cooling promises to be an attractive application for solar thermal energy. To operate this kind of systems, a relatively high-temperature working fluid (90-165°C) must be provided for efficient operation. However, because of the relatively low temperatures attainable when flat plate collectors are used, therefore, concentration of solar radiation becomes necessary. One of the best known solar concentrators is the Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC), which is probably one of the concentrating collectors has the most attention and publicity. Thus, in this paper, the CPC will be studied to be suitable for this application. For practical application, the performance of the system should be studied under outdoor conditions. Therefore, in this paper, the feasibility of non-evacuated CPC system for unsteady state is analyzed under outdoor conditions, where the wind velocity and ambient temperature variations are considered in addition to the solar intensity for all days in the year. These parameters are dealt as varied values along the day depending on an actual data, which are taken from Meteorological Station in Misurata, Libya (latitude 32.41°N). Simulation results showed that, at a design in which the outlet fluid temperatures to be 150 ºC, the system recorded a reasonable efficiency along the year operation at concentration ratio Ca=5. Therefore, using the CPC solar collector with cooling system, and with this value of concentration, is a good application and promise for use.