Design of one-axis tracked linear Fresnel lenses

The most frequently used criterion in the design of linear Fresnel lenses consists of minimizing the radiation spread at the collector when the lens is illuminated by rays that are contained in the full lens acceptance angle and are incident on the lens in the plane perpendicular to the lens axis. This paper analyzes this topic and concludes that when the lenses are one-axis-tracked this criterion can be improved by replacing the perpendicular plane with another forming a certain angle to it. When calculated for a specific lens, at the location of Madrid, the new criterion was found to yield an increase of more than 7% in the total annual energy collected.