IIT-Madras develops low-cost solar power system

CHENNAI: Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras have developed a low-cost Solar parabolic trough collector (PTC) system for concentrating solar energy, with industrial applications in areas such as desalination, space heating and space cooling among others.

The indigenously designed and developed system is lightweight with high energy efficiency under various climatic and load conditions in India. It can be integrated effectively with various process heat applications and can help manufacturers and researchers make devices with higher efficiency.

The team head Prof K Srinivas Reddy, heat transfer and thermal power laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, noted that lower rate of energy generation was a major roadblock in achieving the target set by the National Solar Mission to provide 20,000 MW through solar power by 2022. “Technologies such as this one can help meet this target,” he said.

On the application of solar energy to meet energy needs, he said, “Solar energy technology is the most propitious technology for clinching sustainability in the energy domain. Particularly, concentrated solar power (CSP) technology can meet thermal and electrical energy demands due to its high dispatchability and reliability.”

The research team tested the efficiency of the system in terms of optical and thermal efficiencies. Optical efficiency is the amount of energy absorbed by the tube over the total energy received by the collector. Thermal efficiency is the heat collected over the heat gain by the system.

They found that the optical efficiency of the evacuated system was 72 per cent and non-evacuated system is 68 per cent when heat loss was minimised.

“We intend to commercialise this product and demonstrate the application of PTC technology with energy storage for sustainable energy solutions in agriculture, food, dairy and industrial process heat sectors,” Prof Reddy said.