LINEAR FOCUSING FACILITIES

CAPSOL FACILITY

CAPSOL is a concentrating solar thermal energy test facility designed and built at the PSA for testing of small-sized, high-precision parabolic-trough solar collectors under real environmental conditions.

The facility is designed to operate with pressurized water under a wide range of operating conditions: fluid temperatures from ambient to 230ºC, flow rates from 0.3 to 2.0 m3/h and pressures up to 25 bar. It also allows testing of different collector orientations and sizes (apertures up to 3 m). High-precision instrumentation has been installed for measuring all of the parameters required for adequate evaluation of parabolic-trough collectors. In particular, the facility has a mass flowmeter (Coriolis-type, with a ±0,1% measurement accuracy), a pyrheliometer (Eppley, with 8 μV/(Wm-2) sensitivity) and two types of temperature sensors at the inlet and outlet of the solar field (4-wire PT-100 with an accuracy of ±0.3ºC in a 100 to 200ºC range). In addition to these instruments, the facility has sensors for measuring other parameters, such as fluid temperature at various points in the circuit, pressure, tank level, ambient temperature, wind speed and direction, etc.

Figure below shows a Photo of the CAPSOL test facility with two prototypes of small-size parabolic-trough collectors installed.

This test facility makes it possible to find the efficiency parameters required for characterizing parabolic-trough collectors: peak optical-geometric efficiency, incident angle modifier, overall efficiency and thermal losses when collectors are out of focus. The stationary state conditions needed for performing these tests is reached thanks to the inertia of the expansion tank and auxiliary heating and cooling systems. The data acquisition and control system facilitates monitoring and recording of the parameters measured as well as system operation from the control room.

Both complete small-sized parabolic-trough collectors and their components, such as absorber tubes, reflectors or tracking systems, can be tested in this facility. Furthermore, the facility also allows analysis of technical aspects of the collectors, such as materials durability, structural resistance, component assembly, etc. under real operating conditions.