A system has been developed to use compound parabolic concentrators to collect solar energy and to generate steam. A CPC reflector profile with a V groove at the bottom of the reflector to reduce the gap losses was designed with a half acceptance angle of 23.5degrees for a tubular absorber of OD 30 mm. Five troughs fabricated with fiberglass substrate pasted over with UV stabilized self-adhesive aluminized polyester foil having high specular reflectivity joined together side by side comprise the CPC module with an aperture area of 2.04 m(2). Copper tubes coated with NALSUN selective coatings and enclosed by borosilicate glass envelope act as absorbers. The reflector absorber assembly housed in a single glass wool insulated wooden box forms the CPC collector. Using water as the heat transfer fluid efficiency tests were carried out with different inlet temperatures. In situ steam generation testing and possible application to steam cooking were also carried out. A theoretical modeling was developed by setting up different heat balancing equations and a reasonable agreement between theoretical computed values and the experimental values was observed. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.