Abstract
Dust accumulation is one of the reasons for the performance degradation of concentrating photovoltaic and thermal (CPV/T) systems due to the deposition of dust particles with different compositions, shapes, sizes, and masses. In this work, an optical model was developed to investigate the influence of the particle size, diameter, shape, and deposition density on the light concentration efficiency, using the Monte Carlo raytracing (MCRT) method in the Tracepro software. The triangular particles had a larger influence on the light ray deflection and energy flux degradation than the circular and square particles. An average increase in the dust density of 1 g/m2 decreased the light concentration efficiency of particles with sizes smaller than 50 µm and 60 µm by 3.31% and 3.26%, respectively. Furthermore, the effect of the incidence angle on the light concentration efficiency was considered at an angle less than 2°.
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Abbreviations
- CFD:
-
Computational fluid dynamics
- CPV:
-
Concentrating photovoltaic
- CPV/T:
-
Concentrating photovoltaic and thermal
- CSP:
-
Concentrating solar power
- EDS:
-
Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy
- MCRT:
-
Monte Carlo ray-tracing
- MS:
-
Markov regime-switching
- PMMA:
-
Polymethyl methacrylate
- PV:
-
Photovoltaic
- PVC:
-
Polyvinyl chloride
- PV/T:
-
Photovoltaic and thermal
- RMSE:
-
Root mean square error
- SEM:
-
Scanning Electron Microscopy
- SOG:
-
Silicon on glass
- XRD:
-
X-ray powder diffraction
- η c :
-
light concentration efficiency before dust accumulation/%
- η d :
-
light concentration efficiency after dust accumulation/%
- η loss :
-
the loss rate of the light concentration efficiency/%
- η r :
-
dust coefficient/%
- ρ ave :
-
average dust density/g·m−2
- ω :
-
density of dust particles/g·m−3
- Eave :
-
average irradiance/W·m−2
- E max :
-
maximum irradiance/W·m−2
- E min :
-
minimum irradiance/W·m−2
- m :
-
the mass of the dust/g
- n :
-
total number of experiments
- S :
-
the area of the Fresnel lens/m2
- T avg :
-
mean transmittance value/%
- T e :
-
experimental transmittance value/%
- V :
-
volume of the accumulated dust/m3
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51766012), the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia (No. 2019MS05025), the Inner Mongolia Science and Technology Major Project (No. 2019ZD014) and the Key Project of the ESI Discipline Development of Wuhan University of Technology (WUT Grant No. 2017001).
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Special issue: Built Thermal Environment
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Zhao, N., Yan, S., Ma, X. et al. Analysis of the Light Concentration Loss of a Fresnel CPV/T System after Dust Accumulation. J. Therm. Sci. 31, 1868–1880 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-021-1466-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-021-1466-8