Archive
CONCENTRATED SOLAR POWER. Latest published applications 2015-2017. Receivers
Summary
Receivers of concentrated sunlight are necessary technological elements of any thermal solar station. Despite the range of proposed options for their designs, tubular evacuated receivers and special central receiver systems are used most frequently. Modern engineering research in this area is mainly aimed at providing the option for increasing heat transfer fluid temperature to more than 6500С and improving the thermal efficiency of the system, which inevitably leads to developing new designs of receivers, the use of advanced materials to absorb solar radiation or to reduce heat loss with a simultaneous optimization of corrosive properties of a system. No less important is increasing the service life of receivers, as well as a lowering of production and maintenance costs. The proposed bulletin has accumulated recent patent applications containing most of the new technical solutions aimed at solving the above problems, as well as statistical indicators of the development of this segment of solar energy.
The present bulletin reviews patent applications registered by patent offices around the globe in 2015-2017 in the field related to Receivers in Concentrated Solar Power. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 1596 patent documents from 38 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 621 applicants from 40 countries and 746 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.
Based on the analysis of each of the patent applications, internal characteristics of unified indicators (technical problems, types of inventive solutions, belonging to one or other technological segment) were found, which allowed specific features for each of the indicators for the entire array of documents to be defined, for instance, to define the leading problems or technical solution types that were disclosed by the inventors the most. Document lists are provided for the ten most popular groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators, including their ID numbers and applicant names.
A list of the top 10 applicants by the number of patent documents includes Chengdu Juhe Technology Co. Ltd (CN), SunPower Corporation (US), Abengoa Solar New Technologies, S.A. (ES), Soitec Solar, GmbH (DE), University of Stellenbosch (ZA), Kunshan Hede New Energy Technology Co Ltd (CN), Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (JP), Exosun (FR), Optimum Tracker (FR) and Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (FR). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices and technology indicators is provided in the form of tables and diagrams for them.
The bulletin contains lists of the top 10 prominent documents having the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and those not being part a of patent family.
The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the registered patent applications.
Who needs this bulletin?
The data provided in the proposed bulletin is a timely reflection of the transformations that take place in the intellectual property sector of the industrial direction concerned. A thoroughly edited selection of patent documents can become a good complement to your library of available technical solutions. The bulletin is targeted at inventors, engineers, researchers, managers and business administrators involved in the development of solar energy production technologies.
