Concentrating solar collectors use shaped mirrors or lens to provide higher temperatures that flat plate collectors.
Heliostats are tracking mirrors that reflect solar energy onto a fixed target.
This page "concentrates" on providing links, information and plans for Build It Yourself concentrating collectors and heliostats.
- Concentrating Solar
Collectors
See also the Solar Cooking section for more concentrating designs ...
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Concentrating Collectors | |
RedRok
Duane Johnson
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A parabolic trough solar collector you can build George's website with information on the parabolic collector and other interesting projects... George's blog -- experiments and tests on concentrating collectors, LED lighting, ...
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![]() Can be made with common shop tools. George has just released a generation 2 version of plans and documentation for his collector system. Its a major update that includes design changes, more detail, lessons learned and more. It is an exceptional set of plans and a reference on concentrating collectors. These were .my thoughts on the first version -- the 2nd version is even more impressive. George has done some really interesting and well executed testing of flat plate and parabolic concentrators both tracked and not tracked... |
Generating steam with George's parabolic trough collector... |
![]() It will be interesting to see where this leads. |
The Aquaflector
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Looks like a very simple, buildable, well thought out design. |
Manual Making of a Parabolic Solar Collector, Gang Xiao, Laboratoire J.A. Dieudonn'e, Universit'e de Nice, Nice France |
![]() Lots of detail. |
Solar Fire Project
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![]() The materials are easily obtainable and the design is simple and straight forward -- the concentrators can be made with readily available materials and simple tools. The Helios collector provides about 3 KW output and temperatures up to 950C. Several potential applications are discussed. |
Inflatable Heliostat Download full report pdf (3.5 mb) Mithra and Gary
Mithra (the inventor's) website: |
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Home
Made Solar Water Distiller
http://www.thesietch.org/projects/distiller/index.htm
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![]() I've included it in the concentrating solar collectors are because the mirror design is interesting and simple, and may have variety of concentrating solar applications. |
Roasting Coffee on Sunshine |
![]() How to build a 1200F solar coffee bean roaster. Certainly one of the highest and best uses for solar power! |
A concentrating Collector made from 116 mirrors of 1 sqft each
http://www.ida.net/users/tetonsl/solar/page_iii.htm
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![]() "Teton Engineering's Tracking Solar Concentrator is an array of 116 mirrors, one square foot each mounted on a framework and arranged to reflect sunlight on a "collector", figure 1. The concentrated sunlight can raise the collector temperature to about 1200F" A very detailed set of plans are included -- !! be careful !! |
Understanding Solar Concentrators VITA paper on concentrating solar collectors
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SunSpot -- Fresnel Mirror Concentrator
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![]() Used as a solar cooker here, but might be used for other concentrating applications. |
Scheffler Concentrators -- Large, Concentrating Cooking
Collector with Storage Barli Development Institute http://www.barli.org/solar-storage.html
Good description of Scheffler Reflector Design:
David Delaney article on the Scheffler heliostat cooker design... |
![]() This type of concentrator can be built with common materials and ordinary skills. The daily tracking can be by a simple clockwork mechanism, and seasonal tracking can be manual. |
The Ultimate Solar Cooker
How it works: http://www.solare-bruecke.org/
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![]() This type of concentrator can be built with common materials and ordinary skills. |
Solar Sphere -- Concentrating Solar Power http://www.seao2.com/solarsphere/csp.htm
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Parabola Drawing Tool
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Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector A concentrating scheme using flat or nearly flat mirrors Full size prototype test (pdf) Several papers from Ausra -- a commercial developer of the concept: |
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Optics Experiments On The Cheap http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX9Z-nsUHiA
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![]() It allows you to quickly and easily fully visualize how a given mirror shape will do in focusing incoming sun. It allows you to very quickly see the effect of mirror shape changes. While the video is aimed at refining solar cooker designs, the technique could be used for any kind of concentrating solar application. |
Performance of Concentrating Collectors
Test Results SEGS LS-2 Solar Collector, http://sopogy.com/
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![]() The 1994 paper gives tested efficiencies for the very sophisticated SEGS LS collector that uses a selectively coated heat receiver enclosed in an evacutated tube, but is helpful because it gives performance with and without the vacuum and the tube. The Sopogy site gives some performance data on their collector. Bear in mind that both of these collectors are built to very high precision. If you are aware of other sources for concentrating collector performance, please let me know. |
Heliostats | |
Light Manufacturing Heliostats http://lightmanufacturingsystems.com/heliostats/ |
![]() These heliostats are part of a solar thermal powered rotational molding system offered by the same company. This molding system uses far less energy than conventional rotational molding systems and also costs less. A fascinating application of solar to an industrial process with larger energy needs. See the first video on this page for a description... |
HELIOTRACK.COM
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![]() Good practical design and experimental data and even some kits to help with the tracking. |
The Wikoda Sunflower
Heliostat... |
![]() ![]() The tracker, which is also sold separately is right in the center of the petals. |
The Practical Solar Heliostat System http://www.iwilltry.org/b/projects/build-a-heliostat-for-solar-heating-and-lighting/
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![]() The mirrors can be adjusted to provide concentrated or diffuse light. One PC can guide many heliostats. Many applications, including reflecting light and heat into windows that do not ordinarily get sun. While the product is new, units have "endured several years outdoors with no damage, even during severe winter weather and winds in excess of 80MPH." |
How to Build a Heliostat for Solar Heating and Lighting, http://www.iwilltry.org/b/projects/build-a-heliostat-for-solar-heating-and-lighting/
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Rob's heliostat -- reflects solar light and heat into a window in your
house. |
Inflatable Heliostat Download full report pdf (3.5 mb) Mithra and Gary
Surya -- a cylindrical tracking inflatable concentrating PV solar collector... Patent for the Surya... (pdf) |
NEW This is the follow on version of the inflatable heliostat design that uses a tracking inflatable reflector to concentrate energy on a line of PV cells ---> |
RIC Enterprises ...
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![]() The Inventions page on Mithra's site has some very interesting ideas. |
Mirror gives Italian Village Its Place in the Sun |
![]() They use a heliostat to reflect sun into the town square. I've thought about doing this (on a much smaller scale) to reflect light into my east facing living room windows. |
Cable
supported heliostat from Solaflect Energy http://www.solaflect.com/ |
![]() This new design by Solaflect Energy supports the heliostat mirrors using mostly tension cables rather than the traditional heavy bending structure. Working on more efficient heliostat designs seems like a good backyard inventor challenge. |