Development of Rotary Solar Receiver and Solar Simulator Facility for Concentrated Solar Power Applications

Abstract

A prototype rotary solar receiver and a solar simulator facility have been designed, built and commissioned by Odqa Renewable Energy Technologies in conjunction with The Oxford Thermofluids Institute, University of Oxford for the validation of concentrated solar power technologies. The key features of the rotary solar thermal receiver include the rotating absorber surface which incorporates a high temperature heat transfer design. The innovative design also includes a compact solar power inlet aperture for very high incident heat flux to reduce the radiant heat loss from the high temperature surface. Air is used as the heat transfer fluid as this has system integration advantages over other types of heat transfer media, such as CO2, steam, molten salt, or solid particles. A 30kWe Xenon-arc lamp high heat flux incident light has also been developed to enable experimental validation of the solar receiver technologies. The Xenon-arc lamp array consists of three lamps combined with a custom designed, 5-degree-of-freedom focusing mechanism to achieve precise focus and maximise the heat flux. The receiver has successfully produced working fluid temperatures reaching 1200°C, demonstrating the concept viability for high temperature processes.