Archive
CONCENTRATED SOLAR POWER. Latest published applications 2015-2017. Linear Fresnel Reflector
Summary
Linear Fresnel reflector (LFR) solar power generation is currently represented by two large projects in India (Dhursar, 125 MW) and Spain (Puerto Errado 2 Thermosolar Power Plant, 30 MW). China, Australia, Morocco and other countries vest keen interest in this technology. Fresnel reflectors use long rows of flat mirrors located at an increasing angle, making them appear similar to a section of paraboloids. The main advantage of this type of concentrators is their significantly lower cost of manufacture and subsequent operation compared to parabolic ones; however, they exhibit significantly lower efficiency. Recent patent applications presented in this bulletin are aimed at solving pressing technical and organizational problems in this solar energy sector.
The present bulletin reviews patent applications registered by patent offices around the globe in 2015-2017 in the field related to the subject of Linear Fresnel Reflector in Concentrated Solar Power. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 515 patent documents from 28 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 233 applicants from 25 countries and 337 subgroups of the International Patent Classification are mentioned.
Key Highlights
The bulletin contains statistical data on the distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The top three patent offices that registered the largest number of patent applications were CNIPA (CN), USPTO (US) and WIPO.
For each of the patent documents selected for the examination in the present bulletin the characteristics of unified indicators were preliminary defined, they include: technical problems, types of inventive solutions employed, belonging to one or other technological segment. This allows the internal content for each of the indicators in the aggregate array of documents to be vizualized, for instance, to define the sequence and proportional correlation of technical problems the inventive solutions disclosed in the texts aim to solve. A list of the top 10 groups consisting of patent documents with identical unified indicators contains ID numbers and applicant names of respective documents; the groups are sorted by the number of patent documents.
The following information can be found for the top 10 applicants: breakdown of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices, technological indicators, as well as the estimation of their share in the established intellectual property market. The 10 leading applicants by the number of patent documents were: Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (FR), BASF, SE (DE), Huaneng Clean Energy Research Institute (CN), Glasspoint Solar, Inc. (US), Shenzhen Enesoon Equipment Technology Co Ltd (CN), Wacker Chemie AG (DE), Technology Innovation Center of China Huaneng Group (CN), Siemens Concentrated Solar Power, Ltd. (IL), Toyo Engineering Corporation (JP) and Almeco Gmbh (DE).
The top prominent documents section includes three lists of the top 10 patent applications having the highest bibliographical rating, the largest number of IPC sections, and those not being a part of patent family.
The patent bulletin also includes a list of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by patent offices and indicated by the ID numbers of the registered patent applications.
Who needs this bulletin?
The proposed patent statistics bulletin allows the existing trends in the intellectual property market of the specified industrial sector to be timely traced, as well as the possibility of acquiring a carefully selected list of patent documents fully corresponding to the specified subject. The bulletin can be useful for inventors, engineers, scientific workers, and business representatives, who are focused on the development of solar energy production technologies.
