SunDial: Design and Commissioning of a Modular Collector for Solar Heat for Industrial Processes

The industrial sector is responsible for 20% of the total greenhouse gasses emissions when the electricity consumption is not reallocated. Solar heat for industrial processes (SHIP) is a very promising technology to decarbonize the industry. To date, most of the industrial use of solar heat is thanks to flat plate collectors, which are generally limited to temperatures below 80 ºC. Nevertheless, the industrial needs are generally above 150 ºC, which leads to concentrating solar collectors.
Although linear Fresnel and parabolic trough collectors are able to provide solar heat for temperatures of 150-300 ºC, they are originally designed for much higher temperatures and, thus, their installation and maintaining costs are rather high for this reduced range. This is why a new concept has been proposed by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, the SunDial. This concentrator consists of a rotary platform with a number of short parallel Fresnel collector on top of it.
In the framework of the H2020 project ASTEP (GA 884411), two different SunDial collectors have been designed and are currently being installed for their test in Madrid (Spain). These collectors will be later installed in two industrial sites, one in Corinth (Greece) and the other in Iasi (Rumania). These collectors have been designed for a thermal power output of around 25 kW and an annual yield of 25 MWh. The present work presents the conceptual and detailed design of both concentrators, as well as the commissioning process for its test in Madrid.