This contribution <span>presents an overview of control strategies for parabolic dish concentrated solar power (PD-CSP) sun tracker technologies from the literature on different implementations. This paper also highlights the practical challenges in designing sun trackers for CSP applications. Solar radiation undergoes seasonal changes and transients from the cloud that is exceptionally challenging to manipulate. This paper may provide control engineers with technical information on high-precision solar dynamic tracking and optical accuracy by emphasizing the features, advantages, and limitations of different control techniques and algorithms. Implementation of efficient control strategies addresses concerns in amending dynamics and nonlinearities, thus improving the system responses and extending the operational timeline of CSP plants, which results in a reduced cost per kWh produced.</span>

One of the motivations of deploying renewable energy is its promise to reduce emissions. The accounting of emissions, however, becomes challenging and complex in the case of grid-tied PV system as it also derives energy from the centralized grid where the energy comes from a mix of resource. The amount of avoided emissions is highly variable. The study focused on the determination of avoided emissions resulting from grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) generation of Ateneo de Davao University Jacinto Campus in the Philippines. The results show that the small size of PV systems impacts only the marginal generating plant which is normally a hydro, diesel or natural gas-fired generator and largely depends on which grid the consumer is located. It shows that the energy generation of the PV acts like a peak shaving mechanism that reduces the system load. The solar PV of the university was simulated and the avoided emissions (CO2, SO2, NOx, PM10, PM2.5, NH3, VOCs, and Hg) were quantified through energy-based approach.

Concentrated solar power is an alternative renewable energy technology that converts solar energy into electrical energy by using a solar concentrator and a solar receiver. Computational fluid dynamics have been used to numerically design concentrated solar power. This is a powerful numerical analysis approach that is widely used in energy and environmental engineering applications. In this paper, we review previous work on the applications of computational fluid dynamics in the design of concentrated solar power technology. We performed a bibliometric analysis of journal articles relevant to applications to analyze the current trend of utilization of computational fluid dynamics in these technologies. Then, we conducted a comprehensive analysis focused on the design of solar dish technology using computational fluid dynamics. Furthermore, we reviewed in detail the optical modeling of solar concentrators and solar receivers. Of the 83 retrieved publications from Scopus database, 80 were journal articles, and only three were review papers. Among these 80 journal articles, only 54 were relevant to this study, and 23 were relevant to solar dish technology. The documents were analyzed according to their number of citations, journal sources, and keyword evolution and network map. The information presented in this paper is useful to further recognize the contributions of computational fluid dynamics to the development of concentrated solar power, particularly to solar dish technology. In addition, we also discuss the challenges and future research directions to make solar energy a more sustainable source of renewable energy.

Among the significant problems in the sago processing, the extraction of the starch from its trunk tops the list. The extraction process involves a debarking and rasping process that is very tedious, unsanitary and time consuming that dramatically affects the quality of starch production since the local processor relies mainly on conventional method of extraction. This paper presents the design, fabrication and performance evaluation of sago pith extraction machine. The design concept made was to rasp the sago pith using a rotating rasper without debarking the log to minimize the steps on the extraction process. Four different teeth spacing of the rasper were considered during the testing and replicated three times; 1cm, 2cm, 3cm, and no teeth as controlled respectively. Results revealed that teeth spacing has a significant effect on the performance of the machine such as extraction capacity, extraction efficiency and fineness of rasped pith. Based on average, the highest extraction capacity was recorded at 217.47kg/hr using 3cm teeth spacing, and the highest extraction efficiency was 96.12% using 2cm teeth spacing and the finest rasped pith having the lowest fineness modulus of 2.15 was when using 1cm teeth spacing. Compared to manual and other existing mechanical rasper accounting the process of debarking, machine’s extraction capacity is higher, more efficient, safer and hygienic. Cost and benefit analysis supports that the machine is profitable and the financial efficiency is high having a 65% rate of return and 1.8 years payback period.