Heat exchangers for solar collectors

T PLATE B

Thermal solar collectors are a technology using a reflective collector surface to gather solar radiation upon a receiver device, a pipe with a fluid flowing within used to absorb thermal energy and providing heat transfer. Heat collected by the working fluid can then be used to obtain electrical energy, by thermodynamics water/steam cycles.

Tempco has been contacted recently and involved in an innovative project related to renewable energy, a project for a parabolic trough solar collector, from an original idea of a research team at the Università Politecnica delle Marche, guided by eng. Marco Sotte, at the time committed in a phd at the university. After the building of a first prototype, the Univpm.01 structure, the team needed to test and measure the performances of the plant, requiring to engineer and build a test bench able to ensure the compliance of the solar collector system with the current regulations (Ashrae St. 93/2010 and UNI EN 12975).