Ray-Tracing Modelling of an Asymmetric Concentrating PVT
Abstract
Photovoltaic thermal hybrid collectors (PVT) are able to produce both heat and electricity from the same area. The studied PVT collector is an asymmetric Compound Parabolic Collector (CPC). The reflector design belongs to the MaReCo (Maximum Reflector Collector) family. The main advantages of this collector design are the reduction of material cost due to concentration and the increase cell efficiency by reducing its working temperature through active cooling. Tonatiuh is a Monte Carlo ray tracing software that is able to simulate the interaction between the sunlight and a concentrating collector. A script was written to repeat the process and simulate the sun’s movement over the year. The data was processed using Matlab and the annual received radiation on both receiver sides was obtained. A collector model was drawn in Tonatiuh and its material properties were described. Incremental changes were used both to validate the models results and to assess the impact of each change. The first model had only the reflector geometry and the receiver with perfect properties while the final model had a very accurate description of the studied collector and its properties. The final model performed 21% worse than the initial with ideal properties. Additionally, the homogeneity of the solar radiation on the receiver was analyzed and the 3D effective solar radiation graph was plotted. Finally, it was found that over the year, the receiver under concentration produces 13% more energy than the flat side of the receiver, at the best tilt, for both 0º and 60º of latitudes.
Keywords
Asymmetric cpc pvt, Ray tracing, Tonatiuh simulation, Tilt influence, Mareco, Homogeneity