Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a good book, quite well balanced between concept and clear examples of applications. However is not a guided manual for technicians working in the field, dealing with real practical problems. Saying that I have to mention that there are some practical indications, like for considering piping, shading or even the consideration of sensors for practical protection of these systems.
But, for a person without previous knowledge that must learn from scratch and wants to end up with an small system that works on his house, no, it is not the book to look for, is more for professionals that either are in the business or that they want to enter into the business, but not just as vendors, unless someone want to become an illustrated vendor, which is also needed.
I still do prefer the book "Principles of Solar Engineering" by D. Yogi Goswami, Frank Kreith, and Jan F. Kreider (Jan 1, 2000). but the actual is enough for the medium high level of training, at undergraduate level.
The description of thermal collectors is complete and could help amateurs to go into their own designs of concentrating systems. The author also provide with the list of standards, which is useful and the bibliography, provided by chapters is quite exhaustive. Also there is enough information to try modifications to approach designing and/or building a passive house.
At the industrial scale the book provides a good review/overview but I assume that for these applications a deeper analysis from the economical point of view is needed and also one has to recognize that a lot of research and technological improvements are taking place, as these devices must achieve a more mature state before they become as shell products, although some are quite close to that point.
The book covers also the PV systems, with a concise but clear introduction and moving fast into the applications but is the weak point of the book compared to thermal systems. Perhaps is due to the fact that here the technology is quite mature and even that people is expecting new and more efficient systems to come, still there are not clear time horizons for them.
Finally in the book there are some chapters dedicated to some advances models for simulations, despite the fact that some of them have limited applications in this field, but they come as an interesting topic that do not make the previous part less attractive, on the contrary, is readable and
interesting, at least for me.
Another chapter at the end is related with some economical analysis but from the point of view of the role of renewable energy systems but in the form of Life Cycle Cost Analysis and other typical elements from Energy System Engineering, for which there are other books more focused on this. Again, it is a good complement but not dealing with major simpler issue of cost effectiveness of a particular project. It seems to me that this part comes with more complexity than the one it is needed, some mathematical notation doesn't allow to get the simple idea behind the first order evaluation of simpler projects.
If there is any suggestion for these type of reference books should be that they could provide worksheets in either Excel or any major simple canned software like MathCad, Mathematica, Maple, or any other one, I don't have preferences since I do belong to the generation that grew and uses FORTRAN, where you have plenty of free compilers, the same goes for C.
The reason why I gave 3 starts is to the KINDLE edition, IT DOESN'T HAVE ACTIVE INDEX, for a technical book this is quite a serious drawback, you have to fill in with clippings if you need fast searches and so on.
So I imagine that for the hard copy, on real paper I would give 4 stars, just because I do prefer the other book cited above.
So, if you don't mind for the lack of index, it is worth to get it.
Click Here to see more reviews about:
Solar Energy Engineering: Processes and SystemsWith the threat of global warming, and the gradual depletion of petroleum supplies, solar electric power is rapidly becoming significant part of our energy mix. The range of solar cells spans different materials and different structures in the quest to extract maximum power from the device while keeping the cost to a minimum. Devices with efficiency exceeding 30% have been demonstrated in the laboratory. Solar Energy Engineering: Processes and Systems. Solar Energy Processes and Systems includes all areas of solar energy engineering. All subjects are presented from the fundamental level to the highest level of current research. The book includes subjects such as energy related environmental problems, solar collectors, solar water heating, solar space heating and cooling, industrial process heat, solar desalination, photovoltaics, solar thermal power systems and modelling of solar systems including the use of artificial intelligence systems in solar energy systems modelling and performance prediction.Environmental consequences of solar energySolar desalination including indirect systemsModelling and performance prediction of solar energy systemsWorked examples and cases studies
Get 41% OFF
Click here for more information about Solar Energy Engineering: Processes and Systems
