Acceptance criteria for accelerated aging testing of silvered-glass mirrors for concentrated solar power technologies

Abstract

Solar reflectors for Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies are required to maintain their optical properties in demanding environments for more than 20 years of service-life. The durability of the commonly used silvered-glass reflectors is typically qualified by means of accelerated aging. Recently, the Spanish standardization committee UNE has published the first specific standard for this topic, which defines a set of accelerated aging tests for CSP reflectors. However, the standard does not contain pass/fail criteria. This paper proposes useful acceptance criteria for the accelerated tests defined by UNE, helping to interpret the obtained Degradation results. The criteria have been determined by analyzing the collected accelerated aging data over the past 5 years in the OPAC laboratory, a joint research group of DLR and CIEMAT. Data from six different 4 mm silvered-glass manufacturers is presented, covering nearly the entire market of commercially available silvered-glass mirrors, and going way beyond the recommended testing times of the UNE standard. The data may be used to benchmark initial reflective properties (before aging) and the performance during accelerated durability testing. In addition, recommendations for improvements of the standard are given and an estimate of the acceleration factor of the Copper Accelerate Salt Spray (CASS) test with respect to a highly corrosive outdoor environment is presented.