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In the last years, solar thermal power plants based on parabolic trough concentrators (PTCs), which are the most proven type of the Concentrating Solar Power technologies (CSP), have been widely deployed in the industry sectors. Indeed, there are various applications for thermal plants in industry, such as desalination, refrigeration and air heating. The optimization of the mirror surfaces design is basic to characterize the whole solar energy conversion system. In this paper the basic geometrical parameters a typical PTC are presented and the optical performances of this collector is studied basing on these parameters.

A detailed performance model of a 4 MW small scale parabolic trough solar thermal power plant, coupled to an Organic Rankin Cycle in Ait Baha cement factory was built based on TRNSYS software to study the performance of the system throughout the day using experimental data from the operating system. The electric power output from the coupled system at a given incident radiation depends on the product of the solar field efficiency and the heat recovery system efficiency. Also, to put the item on the seasonal climate change in our location, a simulation for the summer and winter solstices, the autumn and spring equinoxes were considered. The main objectives of this work are to evaluate the optical and the thermal behaviour of parabolic trough collectors considering average weather data and to predict the performance of the Organic Rankine Cycle.