FUNDAMENTALS & APPLICATIONS OF SOLAR ENERGY

INTRODUCTION

Ahmed Hamed
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Power Engineering Department
Cairo University
Email: ahamed@eng.cu.edu.eg
COURSE OUTLINE

 Introduction  Solar Cooling

 Solar Geometry  Solar Desalination

 Solar Thermal Applications  Solar PV Systems

 Flat Plate Collectors

 Solar Concentrators

 Solar Thermal Storage

INTRODUCTION

 Solar energy is not only thermal, it is also

electromagnetic (used in photovoltaic or
solar cells) and chemical (photosynthesis
which is the source of the fossil fuel, for
example).
 About 30% of the incoming sunlight is
reflected back into space by clouds or light
areas on Earth's surface, or scattered back
out into space by gas molecules in the
atmosphere (that scattering is what makes
the sky blue).
INTRODUCTION

 Of the 70% that makes it through, about

two-third makes it to the ground, while
about one-third is absorbed (not reflected)
by the atmosphere and the clouds.
 When the ground, atmosphere, and clouds
absorb sunlight, they heat up and re-radiate
heat back in the atmosphere.
DISADVANTAGES OF SOLAR ENERGY

 The two main disadvantages are

that is it very diluted and not
constant for terrestrial applications.
 The low energy flux dictate the use
of large surface areas for collectors
and concentrators, and these
systems are expensive. To overcome
the discontinuity problem, storage
systems (or auxiliary systems) are
used, and these also are expensive.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY
Solar thermal collector system
 Thermal conversion is a scheme
that utilizes a familiar natural
phenomenon that is: When a light
absorbing surface is placed in
sunshine, it will heat up.
 Solar collector is an example of
such systems; where as much
possible sunlight (i.e., energy, and
in particular short wave radiation)
is collected and transferred to a
working fluid (usually water or
antifreeze mixture) in order to
heat it up.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

 The hot fluid in turns can be used

in many different ways to make
use of the thermal energy
absorbed from the sun.
 One application of solar thermal
collector system is domestic
water heating.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Systems

 Photovoltaic converters are semiconductor
devices that convert part of the incident solar
radiation directly into electrical energy. An early
public demonstration of solar cells occurred in
1955, where a small panel of experimental
silicon cells provided energy to charge a
battery and power telephone equipment. Since
then, tremendous progress has been made in
the development of cell technology and
applications. Early hand-made cells were 5%
efficient, were 1 or 2 𝑐𝑚2 in area, and had
outputs of a few milliwatts.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Systems

 Solar cells are being used in a range of
applications, from powering watches and
calculators to charging batteries for boats and
communications systems to medium-scale
systems for power generation. Photovoltaics
have been the means of supplying power to
most of the satellites that have been launched
since the beginnings of space programs.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

Solar Power Generation Systems

 Conversion of solar to mechanical and
electrical energy has been the objective
of experiments for over a century. Much
of the early attention to solar thermal-
mechanical systems was for small scale
applications, with outputs ranging up to
100 kW, and most of them were
designed for water pumping. Since 1985
there have been several large scale
power systems (up to 80 MW)
constructed and operated.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

Solar Power Generation Systems

 The processes for conversion of solar to
mechanical and electrical energy by
thermal means are fundamentally similar
to other thermal processes. In addition,
these processes operate at higher
temperatures compared to the examples
given before.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

Absorption refrigeration system

 Like the compressor in an electric vapor
compression cycle, the absorption
system uses its "thermal" compressor
(consisting of the generator, absorber,
pump and heat exchanger) to boil water
vapor (refrigerant) out of a lithium
bromide/water solution and compress
the refrigerant vapor to a higher
pressure.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY
Solar Food Drying
 For several thousand years people have been
preserving dates, figs, apricots, grapes, herbs,
potatoes, corn, milk, meat and fish by drying. Until
canning was developed at the end of the 8th
century, drying was virtually the only method of
food preservation. It is still the most widely used
method.
 Solar dryers are easy to build with locally available
tools and materials and operate simply by natural
convection. Some of the solar food dryers are
basically wooden boxes with vents at the top and
bottom ash. Food is placed on screened frames that
slide into the boxes.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

Solar Water Desalination

 Desalination is a water treatment
process that separates salts from
saline water to produce water that is
low in total dissolved solids. The use
of this process in places, where salt
water is available and fresh water is
not (such as on small islands), has
obvious benefits as it opens up a
wide range of raw water sources,
ranging from the ocean itself to
brackish waters located on island or
underground.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY
Solar Water Desalination
 There are three basic ways in which solar energy is
used to desalinate saltwater. These are
humidification, distillation, and photovoltaic
separation.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

Solar Energy Storage

 Solar energy is a time-dependent energy
resource. Energy needs for a very wide
variety of applications are also time
dependent but in a different fashion than
the solar energy supply. Consequently,
the storage of energy or other product
of a solar process is necessary if solar
energy is to meet substantial portions of
these energy needs.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY
Solar Energy Storage
 Energy (or product) storage must be
considered in a solar process system, the
major components of which are the solar
collector, storage units, conversion
devices (such as air conditioners or
engines), loads, auxiliary (supplemental)
energy supplies, and control systems.
 The performance of each of these
components is related to that of the
others. The dependence of the collector
performance on temperature makes the
whole system performance sensitive to
temperature.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY

Solar Energy Storage

 Energy storage can be in the form
of thermal energy storage or in the
form of electrical energy storage.
APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES OF SOLAR ENERGY
Solar Energy Storage
 The optimum capacity of an energy
storage system depends on the
expected time dependence of solar
radiation availability, the nature of
loads to be expected on the
process, the degree of reliability
needed for the process, the manner
in which auxiliary energy is supplied,
and an economic analysis that
determines how much of the annual
load should be carried by solar and
how much by the auxiliary energy
source.