The Potential of Solar Heat in Industrial Processes
| SOLAR
HEAT FOR INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES |  |
| With high performance solar collectors heat at temperatures up to 250 ºC can be produced with an excellent efficiency. Heat at these temperatures is required in many industrial processes: steam generation, washing, drying, distillation, pasteurisation, etc.. The large scale of industrial installations leads to systems of very low cost, resulting in a good economic performance. Solar collector arrays can be integrated either into industrial roofs, or installed on an available ground area. |  |
CPC type concentrator |  | Stationary collectors. Solar collectors without sun tracking. They can produce heat at medium temperatures up to 150 ºC. To this group of collectors belong evacuated tube collectors, evacuated flat plates, flat plate collectors with transparent insulation and flat plate collectors with CPC type concentrators. Parabolic trough collectors. One-axis sun tracking collectors used in large solar centrals for electricity generation. Temperatures up to 300 ºC can be obtained with good efficiency. An industrial solar installation consists in a solar collector field through which water or a water and glycol is circulating (primary circuit). A regulation system controls the circulation depending on the available solar radiation intensity. By means of a heat exchanger, solar energy can be used for heating of liquids, airflows or for steam generation. The coupling of the solar system with the conventional system of heat supply can be done in several points of the system: direct coupling to a specific process, pre-heating of water and steam generation in the central system. In many industries the heat demand is so high that there is no need for storage of solar energy. This allows building very low cost solar systems by eliminating costs associated with storage. |
plate collector |  | |
collector with segmented parabolic trough concentrator |  | |
Possibilities foir the coupling of the solar system with the conventional system.
Technical efficiency - economic performance
