This book offers a detailed and comprehensive account of the engineering of the world's first nonimaging Fresnel lens solar concentrator. The book closes a gap in solar concentrator design, and describes nonimaging refractive optics and its numerical mathematics . The contents follow a systems approach that is absent in standard handbooks of optics or solar energy. The reader is introduced to the principles, theories, and advantages of nonimaging optics from the standpoint of concentrating sunlight (the solar concentrator idea). The book shows the reader how to find his or her own optical solution using the rules and methodologies covering the design and the assessment of the nonimaging lens. This novel solar concentrator is developed within the natural constraints presented by the sun and in relation to competitive solutions offered by other concentrators.

Inhalt

Executive Summary.- 1 Lenses and Mirrors for Solar Energy.- 1.1 Photovoltaic or Thermal Concentration?.- 1.2 Classification of Solar Concentrators.- 2 Nonimaging Optics.- 2.1 Nonimaging Concentration.- 2.2 Generalized Ideal Concentration.- 2.3 Lagrange Invariant.- 2.4 Nonimaging Mirrors.- 3 Fresnel Lens Optics.- 3.1 Reflection and Refraction.- 3.2 Total Internal Reflection.- 3.3 Deviation.- 3.4 Refractive Indices.- 3.5 Minimum Dispersion.- 4 Earlier Fresnel Lenses.- 4.1 History of Fresnel Lenses.- 4.2 Recent Developments.- 4.3 Simple Fresnel Lenses.- 4.4 Domed or Arched Fresnel Lenses.- 5 Nonimaging Fresnel Lens Design.- 5.1 Applied Nonimaging Lens Design.- 5.2 The Optimum Linear Lens.- 5.3 Rotational Symmetry.- 5.4 Arbitrary Shapes.- 5.5 Diverger Lens for Lighting.- 6 Lens Evaluation.- 6.1 Losses.- 6.2 Transmittance.- 6.3 Geometrical Losses.- 6.4 Concentration Ratios.- 6.5 Nonideal Concentration.- 7 Optimization of Stationary Concentrators.- 7.1 Choice of Stationary Collector.- 7.2 Solar Radiation Model.- 7.3 Radiation on a Tilted Plane.- 7.4 Acceptance by a Solar Concentrator.- 7.5 Compound Parabolic Concentrators.- 7.6 Quasi-3D Concentrators.- 8 Prototype Design, Manufacturing, and Testing.- 8.1 Prototypes of Choice.- 8.2 Prism Size.- 8.3 Lens Redesign.- 8.4 Lens Manufacturing.- 8.5 Sample.- 8.6 Preliminary Tests.- 8.7 Partial Absorber Illumination.- 8.8 Tracking.- 9 Concentrated Sunlight and Photovoltaic Conversion.- 9.1 Flux Density.- 9.2 Solar Disk Size and Brightness.- 9.3 Spectral Color Dispersion.- 9.4 Concentrator Cells.- 9.5 Multijunction Devices.- 9.6 Photovoltaic System Performance.- 9.7 Concentration and Cost.- 10 Solar Thermal Concentrator Systems.- 10.1 Solar Resources.- 10.2 Solar Sorption Air Conditioning.- 10.3 Energy and Exergy.- 10.4 Exergy of a Concentrating Collector.- 11 Solar Concentration in Space.- 11.1 Space Concentrator Arrays.- 11.2 Design Challenges in Space.- 11.3 Lenses and Mirrors!.- References.