Enhancement of frost-melting performance for compound parabolic concentrator during its operation at sunrise hour

Winter cold stress caused by the low temperature of cattle shed in northern China is the main factor restricting the growth and milk production of cattle. Here, this study proposes a solar soil storage heating system for cattle bed in cattle shed based on compound parabolic concentrating technology. And aiming at the problems of short solar collection time and frost on the aperture cover of compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) in the system during winter, a novel CPC (N-CPC) by adding PV module under the aperture cover of the traditional CPC is proposed. The frost-melting of the aperture cover can be enhanced by using the heat dissipation from the added PV module, which can meanwhile capture solar radiation escaped from the CPC. The outcome of the optical analysis indicates that the added PV module can reduce the optical losing ratio of the CPC by 48 % when the incident angle is 25°. The frost-melting characteristics of the CPC and N-CPC were tested under real weather conditions, and the enhancement mechanism of the added PV module for frost-melting on the aperture cover of the CPC was analyzed. The added PV module raised the aperture cover temperature and the air temperature in the CPC cavity by 7.1 °C and 7.9 °C, respectively, shortening the frost-melting time by 36 min, in comparison with the case without an added PV module. The findings contribute to the design and optimization for improving the frost-melting and solar collection capacity of CPC during its operation in winter in cold regions.