Hello all !

[crixz]

im a 40 year old swedish energy researcher, currently building compound parabolic troughs for photovoltaics and heat, a hybrid withother words !

Im going to make a new thread and let you guys follow the development all the way to the finished product.



Regards marten

[russ]

Hi Marten, Welcome to Solar Panel Talk!

Your project is of a type I have followed a bit with great interest!

Are you involved with Arontis by chance?

Russ

[crixz]

Arontis, not

Hello Russ !

Thanks for the interest !

Well, no, but you can say that im inspired by them.
They have a product that is good in some ways, and bad in others, im my opinion :

Good things:

1. A hybrid between two good things, pv and heat generation in the same unit.
2. Elegant solution with mid mounted water cooled solar panel.

Bad things, in my opinion.

1. It is a conventional parabolic trough that needs a tracker to stay efficient.
2. Expensive construction.
3. stainless reflectors only 85% reflective ( from what i know)
4. heat exhanger similar to a flat plate solarcollector. ( from what it seems)

My plan is to do the following, and i am doing today, but in beta stage:

1. a computer generated compound parabolic trough, that can be static, i.e no tracker
and be reasonably efficient with less complicated setup = lower $/w ratio.
2. cheap construction in reinforced fiberglass.
3. direct fluid heat exchanger with laminar flow = higher Pv efficiency due to lower average temperature of Pv cells.
4. higher power gain, 5-10 x = less silicon needed.
5. highly reflective mylar 96% and low reflective PET shielding with 98% light pass thru.

Bad things :

1. more ugly to put on a roof than conventional Pv.
2. Needs cooling in summer when we need no heat .
3. Does probably give Competitors a headache

Im doing this for a commercial product, yes, but im doing it for the people, create a cheap product that everybody can afford, may even lower our co2 emissions more than conventional pv, due to high total system efficiency, (Heat+ Pv)

Marten

( P.S sorry for my language, im swede )

Hi Marten, Welcome to Solar Panel Talk!

Your project is of a type I have followed a bit with great interest!

Are you involved with Arontis by chance?

Russ

[russ]

Hi Marten,

Your English is perfectly understandable!

I like the concept as it provides hot water (maybe 50

[russ]

I had exchanged a couple of emails with Joakim Bystrom about their system a year or so back. Nice system but costly for an individual home as well as still being in the early stages.

If you can improve on that it would be a wonderful thing!

Russ