Principles of Solar Engineering

very good book for a people that want to know the improovement of solar energy possibilities

This book carefully derives the formulas for a wide variety of solar applications. The trig formulas are not derived but to do so would require a whole separate textbook. A fair amount of background is needed to digest the material presented. The figures and diagrams are a good supplement. There are typos, so one should know how the material is derived, and not just use it blindly. Overall, its one of a kind in its field. David Collins

For the first time since the Carter administration, there has been renewed interest in the engineering of systems powered by renewable energy, and this is one of the better books out there, written, oddly enough, when gas was under a $1 a gallon here in the U.S. This book fills a needed gap in the middle ground between popular science books on the subject and unreadable academic treatises written by Ph.D's driven to "publish or perish". The book's objective is to present the basic technical background needed for the design and economic analysis of solar energy utilization systems. It is assumed that the reader already knows thermodynamics, basic heat transfer, fluid mechanics, calculus, ordinary differential equations, and some chemistry. In other words, the target reader is at least a junior level undergraduate ME student. Design and analysis of solar utilization schemes are approached from a systems analysis viewpoint. That is, it is assumed that you are an engineer with the tools available to do the job, now you just need to know how to assemble your solar energy system and what devices should be included in that assembly. Thus, this book is not concerned with proper doping of pn junctions to produce photovoltaic cells and other such information. This book combines technical design with economical analysis to give the reader a well-rounded view of what goes into the design of a solar utilization system. The technical emphasis far outweighs the economical, with only one chapter being dedicated to cost analysis. The authors have included engineering level detail for all included technologies. This book retains only about 20% of what was in the first edition. Features in this book include: * modern methods of solar resource assessment including satellite measurements * developments in concentrating solar thermal collectors * a chapter on methods for passive heating, cooling and daylighting * the latest developments in solar cooling and dehumidification * a thorough treatment of solar thermal power and industrial process heat * a chapter on photovoltaics with a thorough treatment of fundamentals, design applications and manufacturing * a chapter on solar photochemical applications * a chapter on capturing solar energy through biomass. Biomass describes the mass of all biological organisms, dead or alive, excluding biological mass that has been transformed by geological processes into substances such as coal or petroleum, and is expected to make a major global contribution in the future, for both stand-alone biomass power systems and hybrid solar-biomass power systems. The book makes heavy use of the web, referring students to detailed information found at various websites. However, since this book was written six years ago, many of those links may already be dead. The book contains many homework problems and was designed to be a textbook in a course on the subject. However, there are clear and numerous exam

Principles of Solar Engineering is a comprehensive introduction to solar engineering, well-suited for advanced undergraduates. It's very accessible mathematically, requiring only basic calculus and trigonometry. For the most part, it's also self-contained, although readers with no prior knowledge of thermodynamics, heat transfer, or thermal circuits may need to consult more introductory sources to supplement some sections. This is not intended as a criticism of this text, per se, but the thermal engineering treatment of heat transfer will sometimes seem a little idiosyncratic to someone who was introduced to the subject in a different context. The most pronounced example is the attempt to recast radiative transfer as a pseudo-conduction problem, by writing q = A*h*deltaT, even though the largest temperature dependence is thereby absorbed ("hidden?") in the parameter h. (One can illustrate this numerically, for example, by letting Tg -> 1.1 Tg, keeping Ta fixed, on p. 395.) There are physical reasons for the fourth power of absolute temperature in the radiation law, and it's not clear that the student benefits by downplaying this. <br /> <br />Also, the presentation of the physics of photovoltaics is not as clear as the other parts of the text, but there are many online resources that can help fill this gap.