Electromagnetic Foundations of Solar Radiation Collection: A Technology for Sustainability

This text seeks to illuminate, mainly for the electrical power engineers of the future, the topic of large scale solar flux gathering schemes, which arguably represent the major source of renewable power available. The aim of the content is to impart, from an electromagnetic perspective, a deep and sound understanding of the topic of solar flux collection, ranging from the characteristics of light to the properties of antennas. To do this five chapters are employed to provide a thorough grounding in relevant aspects of electromagnetism and electromagnetic waves including optics, electromagnetic radiation and reception, aperture antennas and array antennas and the quantum electrodynamics aspects of optical absorption, as it relates to photovoltaic techniques. The principles developed in these chapters are then used to underpin and elucidate the main chapters on photovoltaic collectors, concentrated solar power collectors, satellite based collection systems and optical nantennas. To establish the novel and transformative renewable technologies, which civilisation will soon require, in order to achieve sustainability quickly and effectively, the availability of professional engineers and scientists with a thorough and commanding grasp of the fundamental science is an absolutely essential prerequisite. This book provides this for solar power generating systems.

A.J. Sangster received a B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 1963, an M.Sc. in 1964 and a Ph.D. in 1967, all from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. His research interests have been in the areas of microwave antennas, mm-wave sensing, electrostatically driven micromotors and microactuators, electromagnetic levitation, medical applications of microwaves, microwave propagation in geological strata, satellite communications at microwave frequencies and the numerical solution of electromagnetic radiation and scattering problems. He is the author of over 200 papers on these topics.

Professor Sangster spent four years with Ferranti plc, Edinburgh, Scotland, pursuing research into wide-band travelling wave tubes, and three years with Plessey Radar Ltd., Cowes, U.K., investigating and developing microwave devices and antennas for microwave landing systems and frequency scanned radar systems. Since 1972, he has been with the Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, where he became a full Professor of Electromagnetic Engineering in 1989. He retired in 2006, but continues to act in a professorial capacity as a consultant to industry on microwave component design. He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering Technology (U.K.) and a Member of the Electromagnetics Academy (U.S.A.).

Since retiring he has authored three books with renewable energy and energy efficiency content, namely “Energy for a Warming World”, Springer Books, 2010, “Warming to Ecocide”, Springer Books, 2011 and “Fundamentals of Electromagnetic Levitation”, IET Books, 2012.