ABSTRACT
The technological development in the field of solar thermal collectors was largely driven by the high potential of solar energy to contribute to the drastic decrease of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in all energy end-use sectors. Solar thermal applications make use of solar thermal collectors to harness solar irradiation and convert it into heat. Solar collectors capture and convert solar irradiation into either electric energy for solar PV applications or useful heat for solar thermal applications. Absorber plates should be able to efficiently absorb incoming solar irradiation and retain the largest part of the thermal energy absorbed before transferring it to the HTF. Imaging concentrators are reflective optical devices that use incident solar irradiation to form an image of the light source at the focal plane of the concentrator. It collect dilute low-flux solar radiation and focus the rays of light toward a solar absorber receiver positioned at the reflector's focal plane, where an image of the light source is formed.
