Air conditioning is an important part in building services world-wide in both commercial and residential buildings. With the general attempt to reduce the usage of fossil fuels and increase the usage of green solutions, the market for solar air conditioning is growing rapidly. Solar air conditioning combines solar thermal absorbers to transfer solar radiation into heat with heat-driven cooling ...

In this thesis, two new models are introduced for the purposes of (i) locating sites in hillside terrain suitable for central receiver solar thermal plants and (ii) optimization of heliostat field layouts for any terrain. Additionally, optimization of heliostat canting, is presented as an application of the heliostat layout optimization model. Using the site selection model, suitable sites are ...

— CSP technologies are well developed and offer many advantages compared to other renewable energy options. They can also be very effective in many locations with high solar radiation around the world. However today they are less competitive than other technologies. Understanding the limitations, and identifying opportunities for improvements, requires a detailed analysis of the energy conversi...

Limited reserves of fossil fuels and their negative environmental effects impose significant problems in our energy security and sustainability. Consequently, researchers are looking for renewable energy sources, for instance solar energy, to meet the energy demands of a growing world population. However, terrestrial solar energy is a dilute resource per foot‐ print area and is intermittent sho...

Heat is an important resource in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) which can be recovered. A prerequisite to determine the theoretical heat recovery potential is an accurate heat balance model for temperature prediction. The insulating effect of foam present on the basin surface and its influence on temperature prediction were assessed in this study. Experiments were carried out to characteri...

Induction Heating system utilizes electricity for the generation of heat, whereas solar energy is largely available energy source for generation of heat. Combining solar energy with induction heat generation technique is the efficient solution for the heat generation application. The proposed system presents an effective control scheme incorporated in half bridge series resonance induction heat...

A hybrid solar panel has been invented to integrate photovoltaic (PV) cells onto a substrate through a functionally graded material (FGM) with water tubes cast inside, through which water serves as both heat sink and solar heat collector. Therefore, the efficiency of PV cells can be improved by temperature control while the heat conduction to the substrate can be minimized for saving of air con...

Two novel hybrid combined cycle power systems that use solar heat and methanol, and integrate CO2 capture, are proposed and analyzed, one based on solar-driven methanol decomposition and the other on solar-driven methanol reforming. The high methanol conversion rates at relatively low temperatures offer the advantage of using the solar heat at only 200–300 C to drive the syngas production by en...