Abstract
The thermal applications of solar energy have gained momentum after the revolution in the field of PV technology in recent decades. The worldwide quest to harness the thermal component of solar energy, which constitutes the major part of the incident, solar radiation incident globally, has led to the development of numerous thermal devices and applications that harness and store or utilize the same with never before seen efficiency. A few applications and devices are discussed here in this chapter. The first part of the chapter presents a brief discussion of the solar pond and its features along with thermal modeling of the system, followed by the thermal modeling and discussions about solar cooling systems. The later part of the chapter describes solar refrigerators and solar concentrators. The application and devices discussed here are of prime importance in developing basic and advanced solar thermal devices to harness solar thermal energy efficiently for human needs.
Keywords: Application, Solar cooling, Solar devices, Solar thermal.