System Transfer Function of a Parabolic Solar Dish Concentrator Using Fourier Transform.

The sun produces vast amount of renewable solar energy, an inexhaustible resource that can be converted into heat and electricity. In this work, solar dish concentrator with diameter 2.35m for water heating application was designed using the parabolic solar concentrators for low and medium temperature application in different parts of the world. The interior surface of the dish was covered with reflecting mirrors of reflectivity up to 94 % and equipped with a receiver (boiler) located at the focal point. The water temperature increased to 90°C and a high receiver temperature of 160°C was recorded. Fourier transform was also carried out in MATLAB to obtain a transfer function for the measurement on Day 1. This model is used to predict subsequent water temperatures and receiver temperatures for Day 2 to Day 5. Results showed that the predicted water and receiver temperatures followed the same trend as the original values. Solar power/intensity and temperatures measurement were manually tracked. The limited accuracy resulted from hourly averages in operating conditions during the test and data acquisition