Corresponding author: R.S. Mishra Email Address: hod.mechanical.rsm@dtu.ac.in https://doi.org/10.36037/IJREI.2021.5108. 68 International Journal of Research in Engineering and Innovation Vol-5, Issue-1 (2021), 68-77 Concentrated solar thermal power technology Radhey Shyam Mishra, Harwinder Singh Department of Mechanical Engineering, Delhi Technological University Delhi, India ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Introduction Solar energy is a renewable and green resource of energy. Solar energy has several advantages over other alternative or renewable energy sources. All the primary or conventional energy resources are continuously depleting the environment of earth and are giving harmful effect to human health. Among all alternative sources of energies solar energy has great potential and India receives great amount of solar energy as compare to many other developed countries throughout the year. Energy from the sun can be collected and utilized in many different ways, most of which may be grouped into three basic principle categories: Direct thermal applications involving collection of sun light by solar energy thermal heat exchangers for heating and cooling of buildings, heated water distillation, providing industrial and agricultural process heat. Solar thermal electric applications in which energy from sun is transformed into electricity via solar thermal electric photovoltaic, wind and ocean thermal conversion systems Fuels from biomass involving the production of fuels such as wood, methane alcohol, hydrogen, bio –Diesel or other energy intensive products from organic waste materials. All of these technologies exist and have been well demonstrated, however until recent years’ development efforts have been limited in scope due to primarily to the relatively higher cost of utilizing solar energy and the abundance of cheap alternative fuel sources mainly oil, coal and gas. The recent rapid escalation in the costs of the fossil fuels the rising awareness regarding environmental pollution issues and the finite size of fossil resources have changed the scenario. The alternative energy sources have been developed to supplement and eventually replace fossil resources. Solar energy can play a major role and it can be used for a variety of applications which can be divided into the direct and indirect methods and range from small systems for individuals to the massive systems orbiting the earth such as for [1] Abstract This review work consists of detailed description on various types of research in the field of solar thermal systems and various methods to improve the performance of the collector systems. Concentrated solar thermal systems are the highly advanced and large scale technology, which is used to generate the thermal energy and converted it in to electric energy through the application of power producing device coupled with the collector systems, therefore from the research point of view improvement in the working performance of the solar thermal system is highly important to achieve the better efficient device. ©2021 ijrei.com. All rights reserved Article Information Received: 30 December 2020 Revised: 19 January 2021 Accepted: 25 January 2021 Available online: 29 January 2021 _____________________________ Keywords: Solar energy; Concentrated solar power; Thermal performance; Solar thermal collector; International Journal of Research in Engineering and Innovation (IJREI) journal home page: http://www.ijrei.com ISSN (Online): 2456-6934 ORIGNAL ARTICLE