Simplified analysis of solar-weighted specular reflectance for mirrors with high specularity

The most relevant parameter to properly characterize solar mirrors is the solar-weighted near-specular reflectance. As this parameter cannot be directly measured with off-the-shelf instruments, a simplified procedure to be applied for highly specular solar mirrors is proposed in this paper. The approach, based on two criteria, was experimentally employed to check a wide variety of solar reflector materials. Only those mirrors with known high specularity passed the criteria, indicating that the proposed method is suitable.