The present article examines the environmental profile of a concentrating photovoltaic/thermal system with thermal and electricity storage. The system has been developed and experimentally tested at the University of Corsica, in France, and it combines non-concentrating photovoltaic modules with concentrating solar thermal. The study is based on life-cycle assessment according to global warming potential, cumulative energy demand, ReCiPe, Ecological footprint and USEtox. The results (phase of material manufacturing; scenario «without recycling») demonstrate that based on global warming potential, cumulative energy demand, most of the midpoint categories of ReCiPe, ReCiPe endpoint single-score, ReCiPe endpoint with characterization, Ecological footprint single-score (category of Carbon dioxide) and USEtox (category of Human toxicity/cancer), the aluminium support structure shows higher impact in comparison to the other components/materials of the system. Furthermore, the material manufacturing phase (scenario «without recycling») reveals that, in certain cases, the photovoltaic cells and the copper-based components present high impacts. More analytically, according to ReCiPe endpoint with characterization (scenario «without recycling»), the aluminium-based components (support structure; *Revised Manuscript-Clean Version Click here to view linked References receiver) present the highest DALY (disability-adjusted life years) and (species.yr) with total values of 0.015 DALY and 4.9×10-5 (species.yr). Regarding USEtox Ecotoxicity, the Noryl (for the pumps) shows an impact of 62.5 CTU e that is considerably higher in comparison to the other components/materials of the system. The effect of recycling (metals; glass; plastics) has been examined and the results show that, by adopting recycling, energy payback time is reduced from 1.6 to 0.6 years and ReCiPe payback time is reduced from 17 to 8.4 years.
We developed a hybrid solar system using several mirrored surfaces focusing (with an one-axis concentration) the solar radiation on an absorber in view to reach a fluid temperature around 150°C. The objective of this work is to determine the optimal position of the absorber-receiver for a maximal heat production: the height above ground and the width of the absorber for a given distance between the receiver and the mirror structure. The precision on the rotating angle for the mirror is also calculated. We obtained an optimal absorber height above the ground of 66 cm, a width of the absorber of 15 cm and a precision of the rotating angle of 0.1°.
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