Abstract

Solar thermal collectors are widely used worldwide mainly for hot water preparation at a low temperature (less than 80°C). Applications including many industrial processes and central air conditioning with absorption chillers, instead require lower-medium temperature heat (between 90°C and 150°C) to be driven when using solar thermal energy. The metal absorber glass vacuum tube collectors (MGVT) are developed for this type of applications. Current state-of-art and possible future technology development of MGVT are presented.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

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