The present invention relates to the technical field of clean energy, in particular to a surface solar system for using solar energy.
With the increasing emphasis on environmental protection, solar energy systems have been used more and more widely. Common solar energy systems at present are installed on roofs or on road surfaces, such as solar water heating systems based on photothermal conversion and solar power generation systems based on photo-electric conversion.
In these common solar energy systems, their energy conversion devices, such as solar vacuum tubes or photovoltaic panels, typically face sunlight directly and the areas of their own working surfaces are the maximum areas they can receive sunlight, and thus energy collected by the conventional solar system is very limited, and the larger a photovoltaic plate, the higher the cost.
In order to improve the ability to collect solar energy, there has been a concentrated solar system. For example, Chinese patent application, with publication No. CN101640502A, discloses “Method for Assembling Condenser Photoelectrical Solar Cell Array” where sunlight is converged on a photovoltaic panel through a lens so that the photovoltaic panel with a smaller area can obtain sunlight converged from the lens with a larger area.
However, the use of existing condensing lenses is limited by a lot of installation conditions, resulting in low cost performance. In order to make better use of limited space and reduce costs, it is still desirable to develop a solar system which can be used on a large area and is easy to install and maintain.
The present invention provides a surface solar system, comprising a condensing clad plate, a photovoltaic plate and a supporting component, wherein the condensing clad plate is formed by splicing condensing modules in accordance with pre-set patterns. Each of the condensing modules comprises a condensing lens and a base for supporting the condensing lens, the condensing lens comprising at least one tooth surface, one of adjacent surfaces of the condensing lens and the base is a reflecting surface, and the reflecting surface is provided below the tooth surface along an incident surface of sunlight. The photovoltaic plate has at least one photosurface which is capable of absorbing sunlight and the at least one photosurface is arranged to face the condensing clad plate. The supporting component is used for supporting the photovoltaic plate above the condensing clad plate and is substantially located at a condensing position of the condensing clad plate.
According to the surface solar system of the present invention, since the condensing clad plate is formed by splicing a plurality of reflective condensing modules, the solar system is easy to install on a large area; the reflecting surfaces are located inside the condensing modules, thereby being unlikely to be damaged and having better durability; the photovoltaic plate is supported above the condensing clad plate, thereby being unlikely to be damaged and being convenient to install, maintain and renew. Since the cost of the condensing clad plate is far lower than that of the photovoltaic plate, the present invention increases the convergence area with a large-area low-cost condensing clad plate so that the area of the high-cost photovoltaic plate can be reduced, thereby not only improving the utilization efficiency of solar energy but also greatly reducing the cost of the solar system.
Specific examples according to the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Fresnel lenses are used in the solar system according to the present invention, and for the sake of understanding, the related concepts are described below.
The Fresnel lens is a thin lens. By dividing the continuous original curved surface of an ordinary lens into several segments, after the thickness of each curved segment is reduced, all the curved surface segments are put on the same plane or the same substantially smooth curved surface to form the Fresnel lens. This discontinuous refraction surface evolved from the original curved surface can be called a Fresnel refraction surface, which is generally step-shaped or tooth-shaped. In theory, the Fresnel refraction surface has an optical performance approximate to that of the corresponding original curved surface, but its thickness is greatly reduced. The Fresnel refraction surface produced by one original curved surface (or a part of one original curved surface) can be called a Fresnel unit.
Conventional original curved surfaces for generating Fresnel refraction surfaces are generally curved surfaces that are symmetrical about the optical axis, such as spherical surfaces and rotating curved surfaces (such as rotating paraboloids). The focuses of the conventional original curved surfaces are at one point and therefore they can be called “concurrent planes”. In the present invention, the original curved surfaces may be any form of coaxial surfaces, which may be specifically arranged as needed by the application. The term “coaxial surfaces” refers to curved surfaces whose focuses are on the same line (not necessarily at the same point), which may be referred to as a “coaxial line”. The conventional concurrent planes can be regarded as a special case when the coaxial line of the coaxial surfaces is degraded to a point. Due to use of original surfaces which are coaxial but not concurrent, a sensing element configured at the focusing location may be expanded from a smaller area (corresponding to the focal point) to a long strip (corresponding to a coaxial line consisting of focuses), thereby enhancing the capability of signal collection and helping solve the problem of local overheating, without significantly increasing the cost. Typical coaxial surfaces include rotating curved surfaces (including rotating curved surfaces of the second order or a higher order), column surfaces, tapered surfaces, and the like. The column surfaces can be called constant-section coaxial surfaces, and their sections obtained through cutting off these curved surfaces at any point along a direction perpendicular to the coaxial line are consistent in shape and size. A cylindrical surface is a special case of column surfaces. The cross sections of tapered surfaces along the coaxial line are similar in shape but different in size, and a conical surface is a special case of tapered surfaces.
A macroscopic refraction plane consisting of one or more Fresnel units may be referred to as a tooth surface, and a substantially smooth or flat surface opposite thereto may be referred to as a back surface. A tooth surface containing only one Fresnel unit can be referred to as a “simple Fresnel refraction surface” and a tooth surface containing two or more Fresnel units is referred to as a “composite Fresnel refraction surface”. In general, the basic parameters (for example, area, focal length, the shape of the corresponding original curved surface, the number of concentric rings used to split the original curved surface, etc.) of the Fresnel units on the composite Fresnel refraction surface can be flexibly configured and may be completely identical, partially identical or completely different. In one embodiment, all Fresnel units on the composite Fresnel refraction surface have their own optical centers, but their focuses fall at the same point, or on a straight line, or in a limited area. This can be achieved by spatial arrangement of each Fresnel unit constituting the composite Fresnel refraction surface.
In general, the tooth surface and the back face can be flexibly combined to form different types of elements. For example, a Fresnel lens with a tooth surface and a back surface may be referred to as a “single-sided Fresnel lens”. Further, if the tooth surface is a “simple Fresnel refraction surface”, then the lens is a “single-sided simple Fresnel lens”; if the tooth surface is a “composite Fresnel refraction surface”, then the lens is a “single-sided composite Fresnel lens”. A Fresnel lens with both sides being tooth surfaces can be called a “double-sided Fresnel lens”, and according to the type of the tooth surfaces, it could also be further divided into a “double-sided simple Fresnel lens” and a “double-sided composite Fresnel lens”. If one tooth surface of a double-sided Fresnel lens is a simple Fresnel refraction surface and the other tooth surface is a composite Fresnel refraction surface, it can be referred to as a “double-sided hybrid Fresnel lens”. In addition, as a variant, for a double-sided Fresnel lens, if one of the tooth surfaces is a “simple Fresnel refraction surface”, this tooth surface may be replaced by a conventional convex lens surface or concave lens surface.
In the present invention, the condensing clad plate is formed by splicing condensing modules in accordance with a pre-set pattern, for example, the pattern shown in
The reflecting surface in each of the condensing modules may be planar reflecting surface or a curved reflecting surface, such as a concave or convex reflecting surface, and may also be a tooth-shaped reflecting surface, and the reflecting surface is provided below the tooth surface along an incident surface of sunlight. The combination of the tooth surface and the reflecting surface can be equivalently regarded as a Fresnel reflection lens (referred to as a lens having a reflection coating on one side). In
In a particular implementation, each of the condensing modules may comprise two parts, i.e., a condensing lens and a base supporting the condensing lens. The condensing lens comprises at least one tooth surface, one of the adjacent surfaces of the condensing lens and the base is a reflecting surface. In other words, the reflecting surface and the tooth surface may be provided on the same element, for example, by providing a reflective coating on the back surface of a Fresnel lens; the reflecting surface and the tooth surface may also be provided on different elements, for example, a reflector or a reflective coating is provided on the surface, facing the condensing lens, of the base.
As an example, the following describes the structures of several condensing modules:
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
As a preferred embodiment, the reflecting surface in the condensing module may be made of a conductive material, for example, by using a metal coating, a conductive connector electrically connected with the reflecting surface is arranged at the periphery of the condensing module and the condensing modules which are spliced together are communicated in series or in parallel through the conductive connectors and are externally connected to an external power grid through a bidirectional AC inverter. In this case, the solar system may further comprise a temperature controller for initiating power supply to the condensing modules to heat the condensing modules when the ambient temperature is below a preset temperature. For simplicity, only the conductive connectors 35d and a conductive latch 35e for connecting the conductive connectors between the modules are shown in
In addition, the surface of each condensing module preferably has an anti-slipping structure when the condensing modules are applied to floor or road laying. For example, bumps or anti-slipping patterns are arranged on the surfaces of the condensing modules (usually the back surface of the condensing lens); alternatively or furthermore, an anti-slipping material such as rubber is arranged at the joints between the modules, and the height of the anti-slipping material is set to be slightly higher than the surfaces of the condensing modules.
The basic structure of the surface solar system according to the present invention can be referred to
As a preferred embodiment, the photovoltaic plate p2 may adopt a double-sided photovoltaic plate which is used for absorbing incident sunlight in two directions from both the front surface s5 and the back surface s6. A simple approach is to stack two single-sided photovoltaic plates back to back to obtain a double-sided photovoltaic plate. Of course, it is also possible to directly make a photovoltaic device with a double-sided light absorption capability. Due to adoption of the double-sided photovoltaic plate, on one hand, the front surface of the photovoltaic plate can absorb sunlight condensed via a convergence system, and on the other hand, the back surface thereof can also absorb directly radiated sunlight (or sunlight converged via other condensing lenses), such that with the same spatial size, the capacity of a photovoltaic plate for absorbing and utilizing solar energy is effectively improved.
Several use forms of the surface solar system according to the present invention will be described as specific examples below in connection with specific application scenarios.
An embodiment of a surface solar system according to the present invention, referring to
The condensing clad plate is formed by splicing condensing modules 111 in accordance with the pattern shown in
The condensing clad plate of the surface solar system in this embodiment can be laid on a variety of floors such as a courtyard, a roof of a building roof, the free ground on a parking lot, the ground below a utility pole or a light pole, and ground of any other free areas, so that the surface solar system in this embodiment becomes a home solar power plant, or a solar power generation system applied to a parking lot, a highway rest station, etc., to provide a large amount of clean energy. The supporting component can be arranged in combination with the condition of a construction area, for example, an existing pole or light pole may be used as the supporting component.
In order to better store and utilize the electrical energy obtained from the solar energy conversion, the present embodiment also comprises additional elements listed below, and in other embodiments, it may be possible to selectively include only one or more of them according to the needs of the application:
an energy storage 115, electrically connected to the photovoltaic panel 112 and used for storing electric energy, wherein The energy storage may be selected from a supercapacitor, a rechargeable battery and an air compressor;
an AC inverter 116, electrically connected to the energy storage (in other embodiments, it may also be electrically connected directly to the photovoltaic panel) and used for outputting and connecting its power to a networking switch cabinet 117, wherein the networking switch cabinet is connected to an external AC power grid 118 so that the electrical energy generated by the solar energy system can be incorporated into the external power grid, and the AC inverter can also be externally connected to the AC terminal board 119 to provide the AC output directly to users;
a DC voltage output device 120, electrically connected to the energy storage (in other embodiments, it may also be directly electrically connected to the photovoltaic panel) and used for outputting a DC voltage for use by users, wherein the DC voltage output from the output device may include, for example, 12V, 9V, 5V, 3V, 1.5V and so on; and
a status indicator 121 for detecting and displaying the operating parameters of the system, wherein these operating parameters may be voltage, current, power, temperature, etc., so that users can know the operating conditions of the solar energy system, and these parameters can be obtained by arranging detectors (such as a temperature probe) corresponding to the types of the required parameters.
Another embodiment of a surface solar system according to the present invention, referring to
The condensing clad plate of the surface solar system in this embodiment is laid on a window sill or a balcony floor of a building (the condensing modules may adopt a variety of suitable structures, which will not be described herein again), and the walls of the building serve as the supporting component, and the photovoltaic plate is arranged at a corner and under the eaves. Sunlight reaches the balcony floor through the balustrades of the balcony or a transparent partition and then is absorbed by the photovoltaic plate after being condensed by the condensing clad plate. The system arrangement in this embodiment does not take up space and can protect the safety of the facility.
In order to adequately use the solar energy, a water heater 22 is further arranged in this embodiment. The photovoltaic plate 212, as a heat source, is wrapped by the water heater in a heat conduction manner, for example, heat exchange is implemented through close contact with the water heater by means of a thermally conductive material so that the heat energy generated by the photovoltaic plate also can be made a full use. The peripheral elements of the solar system in this embodiment can be referred to the foregoing embodiments without further explanation.
Another embodiment of a surface solar system according to the present invention, referring to
The condensing clad plate of the surface solar system in this embodiment is laid on the auditorium of a course, and the condensing modules may have structures shown in
As a preferred embodiment, when the condensing modules used have a heating function and have been electrically connected with each other, the system may comprise a temperature controller 323 such that the solar system of the present embodiment has a certain anti-snow and anti-ice capability Other peripheral components in this embodiment, for example, an energy storage 315, an AC inverter 316, a networking switch cabinet 317, an external AC power grid 318, an AC wiring board 319, a status indicator 321 and the like an refer to Embodiment 1 and will not be repeated herein.
The principles and embodiments of the present invention are illustrated above by using specific examples, and it is to be understood that the foregoing embodiments are merely used for facilitate understanding the present invention and are not to be construed as limiting the invention. For those skilled in the art, changes may be made to the specific embodiments described above in accordance with the conception of the present invention. For example, if the reflection surface in the above embodiments is arranged on a roof, the ground/a road, water, or a window, the corresponding solar energy system becomes a solar roof, a ground/road solar energy system, a solar artificial island, or a solar window.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2015/073626 | 3/4/2015 | WO | 00 |