A Novel Solar Driven Micro-CHP System: A State of the Art Review

The state-of-the-art solar power system technologies are presented. With ever increasing global energy demand and high oil prices and as well current environmental problems as result of usage of fossil fuels, there is a high interest in renewable energy technologies. The sun radiates enormous amounts of energy to the earth due to its surface temperature of about 6,000°C. About 40-50% of this temperature can be captured and utilised for power generation. Many developing countries have an abundance of solar energy. Thus solar energy as a means of power generation from renewable source presents an attractive and promising solution to the future energy needs of both the developing and developed countries. Various methods of capturing solar energy using solar collectors such as parabolic trough collectors and dish collectors are reviewed. Combined heat and power (CHP) systems driven by concentrating solar collectors are proving to be the most promising methods of domestic power generation. This paper also reviews past work on solar driven CHP technologies. Despite huge potential market for micro scale solar powered CHP systems, the systems are yet to be seen available on commercial market. Hence the authors of this paper are currently developing such type of CHP system with electricity production being of prime importance.