Life Cycle Exergy Analysis of Solar Energy Systems

With a dependence on finite natural resources, increasing energy demands and increasing environmental problems, the use of renewable resources becomes even more important. This is one part of a sustainable development. The ultimate source of most of our renewable energy supplies is the sun. The world’s primary energy use is easily exceeded by the solar energy by a factor of about 10000 [1]. The renewable energies except geothermal and tidal energy depend on solar radiation. Thus, it is essential for future energy systems to rely on energy from the sun and presently, the use of direct solar energy is rapidly increasing. Solar energy systems can be classified into directsolar systems and indirect-solar systems [2]. Here solar energy systems refer to direct-solar systems.