SOLAR CONCENTRATION OF 50,000 ACHIEVED WITH OUTPUT POWER APPROACHING 1 KW

We have achieved a 50,000 +/- 3,000 times concentration of sunlight us ing a unique dielectric nonimaging concentrator in an experiment perfo rmed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The scale of the exp eriment is several times larger than that of previous experiments. Tot al output power approaching 1 kW passes through a 4.6 mm diameter aper ture. An extractor tip is added to the concentrator profile which allo ws measurement of flux levels using an air calorimeter, This new devic e has the potential to allow the use of dielectric concentrators at la rger scale for thermal electric power generation. We report on the imp lications of this experiment for the future use of dielectric concentr ators.