Solar Furnace System Using Tower-Reflector with Ellipsoidal Mirror

A new solar furnace system using a stationary elliptic dish and heliostats is proposed. Since the elliptic dish has two focuses (an upper focus and a lower focus) for elliptic geometry, this system has three advantages. The first is enable to fix a solar reactor on the ground, the second to expand the heliostat field largely, and the third to concentrate the direct solar radiation in a small area around the lower focus. The horizontal deviation from the lower focus of the direct solar radiation was estimated within ±1.2m for the heliostat field of 100m and the tower-reflector height of 70m. The system using the elliptic dish and heliostats is available as high-concentration system due to large scale of solar energy.