Solar fiber-optic mini-dishes: A new approach to the efficient collection of sunlight

A new concept for efficient solar energy concentration and power delivery i s proposed - one that offers substantial advantages in efficiency, compactn ess, reduced mechanical loads, and ease of fabrication and installation rel ative to conventional solar designs. The design exploits the availability o f low-attenuation optical fibers, as well as the practical advantages of ma ss producing highly accurate very small parabolic dishes. The system's buil ding block is a miniature (e.g. 0.2 m diameter) solar dish which concentrat es sunlight into a single optical fiber. The fiber transports power to a re mote receiver. A second-stage concentrator can boost flux levels to those a pproaching the thermodynamic limit and can be performed either in each indi vidual dish or collectively in one or more larger devices at the entrance t o the remote receiver. Collector modules, close-packed with mini-dishes, ar e mounted on individual trackers close to the ground. Systems are modular a nd can be employed in central power generation ranging from a few kilowatts to tens of megawatts. Designs for maximum efficiency attaining collection efficiencies as high as 80% and maximum-concentration designs realizing flu x levels of 30000 suns, are achievable. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd, All rights reserved.