Experimental study of tracking 2-D Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC) with flat plate absorber

This paper presents an experimental investigation of tracking 2-D CPC collector with flat plate absorber under Jordan climate. A single axis solar tracking system was integrated with the collector in order to determine the quality of energy improvement gained due to tracking effect through comparing the maximum plate temperature of both tracking and stationary CPC collectors. The testing was conducted during the period from March to May 2013. Comparative results for the maximum plate temperature were presented. The results revealed that integrating tracking system with CPC collector increased the maximum temperature of the plate by 27.7%, 16.7% and 8.3% for March, April and May, respectively, in comparison with stationary CPC. The cost of the tracking system used in the testing represents 38.6 % of the total cost of the system. However, this percentage will be reduced when the collector is used for certain applications that require extra components.