Realization of a test rig for small solar collectors and preliminary test

The global energy policy looks forward to the development of both centralized and distributed energy conversion systems at different scale mixing thermal and electrical final user supply. The renewable sources (including above all the solar one) have to play an important role especially in urban areas for residential or industrial applications. Meanwhile the thermal energy for residential application is a relevant part of the entire demand, solar technologies could have a significant role in reducing fossil fuel consumption. A novel small parabolic trough collector is developed to satisfy heating and required hot water for a single house matching with a storage system. An innovative and novel concentrator based on parabolic trough technology has been developed in the Department of Industrial Engineering of Florence: the system is designed to reach medium temperatures (180°-200°) with the aim of cogeneration (with ORC) and trigeneration (with absorption chiller). In this paper the components and layout are presented with the description of features and characteristics. The test rig for solar collector has been designed to be compact, self-standing and transportable. The components are described in details and some preliminary test for the novel small size parabolic trough concentrator are reported in this paper. The test results show that, with an average temperature of 41.1°C, the rig is stable, and the average efficiency reaches a value near to 68%