mechanical engineering

The energy from the sun reaching the earth per day ranges from about 600 Btu (British Thermal Unit) / square feet for Northern Europe to about 2000 Btu/square feet for arid regions near the equator. More energy from sun strikes the earth in one hour than all energy consumed on the planet in a year! A summer day’s sun at noon provides a square, meter of land with a power input almost a kilowatt.

Tracking concentrators provide high delivery temperatures but require accurate tracking device and fine surface accuracies and hence are expensive. However, for medium temperature operation, less expensive concentrators have been designed, without the tracking required.  The description of some of these concentrators is given below: Classification of Non-Tracking Concentrators  Broad

In order to achieve a high concentration for high temperatures solar processes, concentrators with double curvatures are used. These requires two axes tracking of the sun. Some of these have been described below:  Please Read:   One axis tracking concentrator classification, construction and working principle  Elaborate classification, advantages and disadvantages of solar concentrators