Inventions by Merced Faculty
The UC Merced Office of Technology Transfer is pleased to present these technologies that are currently available for licensing. For more information, please contact Sam Traina at (209) 228-7964 or straina@ucmerced.edu.
Bi-Solar Concentrator
A University of California, Merced researcher has developed a novel solar concentrator design involving two layers in the optical element, where the first layer employs a Fresnel-like arrangement of parabolic air gaps to reflect the incident light beam to a greater angle from the central axis as it passes to the second layer (effectively trapping the light within the second layer), [read more]
Combined Heat and Power Solar System
Solar collectors have been designed differently with various desired performances for application in solar energy generation. A Solar thermal collector is designed to collect heat by absorbing sunlight. A Solar electric generation system is designed to generate electricity. [read more]
Design Methods for Solar Concentrator Photovoltaic Systems
The high cost of photovoltaic (PV) cells poses a serious obstacle to cost-effective generation of solar electricity. To reduce costs, it is desirable to increase PV cell efficiencies while minimizing the use of costly materials and fabrication techniques.[read more]
Efficient Fresnel Lens Concentrator for Solar Cells
Researchers at the University of California, Merced have invented a Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) design that features much wider acceptance angles than in other CPV systems while maintaining high efficiency and a high concentration factor. [read more]
Efficient Solar Concentrator With A Low-Cost Tracking Mechanism
Solar concentrators used for heating a working gas or fluid have serious trade-offs in terms of the concentration factor attainable (high light concentrations being desirable for achieving high temperatures and, in power generation applications, [read more]
Improved Aplanatic Solar Concentrator
The generation of electricity from sunlight is not cost-effective in many situations because of the inherent limitations of photovoltic (PV) cells and typical lighting conditions. Increased PV cell efficiencies and minimizing the costly materials and fabrication techniques will reduce costs. [read more]
Improved Aplanatic Solar Concentrators
Solar concentrators are relatively compact optical components that concentrate sunlight to heat a working fluid or to generate electricity from photovoltaic cells at higher efficiencies than is possible from unconcentrated sunlight. In the case of working fluids, higher efficiencies [read more]
Improved Fresnel Lens Concentrator for Solar Cells
A researcher at the UC Merced has invented a CPV design that features much wider acceptance angles than in other CPV systems while maintaining a high level of efficiency, a high concentration factor, and more uniform illumination. [read more]
Improved Luminescent Solar Energy Concentrator
Luminescent solar energy concentrators can concentrate both diffuse and direct solar radiation and require no tracking system. These characteristics have advantages for providing the devices and techniques to improve the efficiency of solar power systems. [read more]
Improved Non-Tracking Solar Photovoltaic Concentrators
The UC Merced fixed CPV system is similar to conventional trough-shaped reflector concentrators, but features an unusual geometric arrangement of PV cells that significantly increases the average light intensity at the PV cell surface. [read more]
Inlet-Outlet Manifolds For Mini-Channel Evacuated-Tube Solar Collectors
Evacuated-tube solar collectors, in conjunction with non-tracking, non-imaging parabolic concentrators, can heat working fluids to 200°C at efficiencies near 50%, providing a relatively economical means for capturing and transferring solar energy for use in cooling, heating, and power generation applications. [read more]
Kohler Homogenizer for Aplanatic Solar Concentrator
Effective optical imaging design is critical for a solar energy system such as concentrating photovoltaic and concentrating solar thermal. One of the design goals is to produce high solar flux and a desirable uniform irradiance on the photovoltaic cell, which further convert lights into electrical output effectively. [read more]
Maximum Power Point Tracking for Concentrating Photovoltaic Systems
Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is a method for power optimization in photovoltaic (PV) systems using a highly efficient DC-to-DC converter that adjusts to changes in atmospheric conditions, shading of PV modules or cells, etc. At present, the standard method for regulating MPPT is the “perturb and observe” (P&O) algorithm, also known as the hill-climbing algorithm, where perturbation of a reference voltage is controlled by a feedback loop in response to the power output. [read more]
Method Of Using Generalized Order Differentiation And Integration Of Input Variables To Forecast Trends
Stochastic methods have been broadly applied for operational risk management in the industry of forecasting trends. The method can generate predication for any time-dependent quantity (stock market, weather data, solar and wind power production, etc.). [read more]
Pushing Concentration of Stationary Solar Concentrators to the Limit
The optical concentrators for solar energy generation are applied in both concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) and concentrating solar thermal (CST) technologies. The high level concentrators move to track the sun across the sky in order to maximize the amount of sun [read more]
Simulator for Optimum Land Use in a Concentrating Photovoltaic System
Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar power plants using dual-axis trackers are increasing in demand. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is widely used to compare the cost of energy generation across technologies. In a utility-scale photovoltaic system, spacing dual-axis trackers must be balanced with total energy harvested from modules to minimize LCOE. [read more]
