Optical concentrator scheme is chosen in the form of a parabolic-cylindrical mirror reflector of the offset type, when only one branch of the parabola is used. Thus the problem of mirror shadowing by heat exchanger — thermo mechanical or thermo electrical converters, as in our case, disappears. Fig.2 illustrates offset type parabolic-cylindrical concentrator scheme.

■ n mmt/tnu/n Fig.2. Offset type parabolic-cylindrical concentrator scheme.

1. Mirror. 2. Rotary-supporting mechanism. 3. Thermo converters module. F. Focal point.

Another advantage of the offset scheme is that working mirror position has mainly vertical character even at high angles of solar position.

An important factor of comfort exploitation and thermo modules testing as well as keeping mirror surface safe is low position of the focal zone above the ground. As it was mentioned, surface area of the mirror equals to 10 -12 m2 and it is placed on the rotary­supporting mechanism with the possibility of synchronous tracking of the Sun moving along two coordinates; azimuth and elevation. The angle of the mirror opening is about 70° and the ratio of parabola focus distance to its diameter is equal to 0.35.

INNOVATION

The ISTC A-839 Project Proposal goal is the development, construction and testing of an acting prototype of low-power cost-effective automatic Sun tracking Solar Power Station. Project innovation aspects enclose in the use of ecologically clean technologies in the field of Solar energy conversion, based on a mirror concentrator with two new thermo converters with increased efficiency due to new technical solutions as well as cascade performance of thermo elements. Sun tracking system allows to receive during the day 30 % more energy compared with stationary immovable ones.

System simplicity and its compactness allow quick increase of the number of SPS on any non-prepared place, that leads to corresponding electricity power multiplying.

CONCLUSION

The works under this Project are being on a conceptual and experimental development stage. The major scientific-technical volume of the works consists of research and development of an offset type parabolic-cylindrical solar concentrator, thermal actuators based on the shape memory alloys in cascade performance and thermo electric generators also in cascade performance. As a result, the advantages of the Project are:

— Small area occupied by one SPS module;

— Almost Zero expenses and time for installation work;

— Possibility of manufacturing SPS models in stationary, handheld and mobile ( onboard of a small auto-trailer) variants;

— Lower expected prime cost of the SPS production — about $ 800 per 1 kW.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author is thankful to ISTC for support in participating at Eurosun 2004. Conception of the given paper is submitted to ISTC (International Science and Technology Center, www. istc. ru ) as a Project Proposal and is open for scientific collaboration or ISTC partnership program.

REFERENCES

1. "Materials with the Shape Memory Effect" Handbook, edited by V. A.. Likhachev.

The edition of Saint- Petersburg State University,1998, 374 pages.

2. V. M. Andreev, V. A. Grilikhes, V. D. Rumyantsev "Photovoltaic Conversion of Concentrated Sunlight” (monograph), John Willey & Sons, 1997, 294 pp.

3. Fedorov M. I., Gurieva E. A., Prokof’eva L. V., Zaitsev V. K. Prospects of various thermoelectric use in thermoelectric generators. Proceedings of the XIV International Conference on Thermoelectrics, 1995, St. Petersburg, pp.254-258.