Be careful, this experiment is dangerous.

The idea here is to build a small-scale, home-made concentrated solar plant of sorts.

I've always though buying a large parabolic dish, and repurpose it with hundreds of tiny mirrors. In the collector, I would arrange somehow for the light to go inside a fiber optics cable. That cable would go inside my home so I could use the light, somehow.

Never, ever, ever look directly inside a fiber optics cable. In fact don't look at the light beam as it exits the fiber and hits a surface. Should the beam hits your skin, it will cause severe burns. Remember what the Greek myth was all about.

I've always wondered how many degrees °F you could reach with that, if that would be a good way to reach high temperatures. After all, unless you are willing to mess around with propane tanks, that personally scare the hell out of me, it is hard to get high temperatures at home.

Can you use this heat for reactions that wouldn't be otherwise accessible to you?

Could this focused light be converted to electrical? 

What about the losses in the whole system?