Energy production by parabolic trough solar collector

In line with the growing population of the world energy demand is increasing day by day. Today, energy demand is mainly provided by fossil fuels. Emissions caused by fossil fuels lead to environmental pollution and global warming which leads to an important environmental issue. Also the depletion of fossil resources and increasingly restricted country's economic freedom, led researchers to renewable energy sources for energy needs. Among renewable energy sources, solar energy comes to the fore by its potential, the lack of deleterious emissions and the increasing technological developments.Turkey is located in the sun-belt and its solar energy potential should be taken into serious consideration. Beside its use for heating, cooling, cooking, drying, solar energy can be employed to generate high temperature steam to produce electricity by concentrating systems.In this study parabolic trough collector, one of the concentrated solar power systems, was studied. Parabolic trough collector?s reflecting part, absorber tube and glass covering were designed and a prototype was manufactured for thermal experiments. Optical and thermal efficiencies of the parabolic trough collector in size 1,40 x 3,00 m were calculated experimentally and the useful energy which transferred to the heat transfer fluid was also determined. As result of calculations the mean thermal efficiency of system was found as 85 % and the mean optical efficiency of system is as 20 %. Efficiency of the glass cover which affects the systems optical efficiency significantly, was determined as 25 %. Electricity production in Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) processes was also simulated theoretically and thermodynamic analyses were carried out at working conditions. Exergy analysis of ORC process was done and first law efficiency was determined as 9 % and second law efficiency as 45 %. In simulations, net power from the steam turbine for the experimental system was determined to be around 50 W.