Design optimization of a solar tower power plant heliostat field by considering different heliostat shapes

The present study focuses on the optimization of solar tower power plant heliostat field by considering different heliostat shapes including rectangular, square, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, and circular heliostat shapes. The optimization is carried out using an in-house developed code-based MATLAB program. The developed in-house code is validated first on a well-known PS10 Solar Thermal Power plant having rectangular heliostats shape and the resulting yearly unweighted heliostat field efficiency of about 64.43% could be obtained. The optimized PS10 heliostat field using different heliostat shapes showed that the circular and octagon heliostat shapes provide better efficiency with minimum land area. The yearly efficiency is increased from 69.65% for the rectangular heliostat shape to 70.96% and 71% for the octagon and circular shapes, respectively. In addition, the calculated field area (land area) is reduced for the case of circular and octagon heliostat shapes with a gain of about 11.10% and 10.93% (about 42.0436 × 10³ and 41.4036 × 10³ m²), respectively, in comparison with the PS10 field area.     

A new method for the design of the heliostat field layout for solar tower power plant

A new method for the design of the heliostat field layout for solar tower power plant is proposed. In the new method, the heliostat boundary is constrained by the receiver geometrical aperture and the efficiency factor which is the product of the annual cosine efficiency and the annual atmospheric transmission efficiency of heliostat. With the new method, the annual interception efficiency does not need to be calculated when places the heliostats, therefore the total time of design and optimization is saved significantly. Based on the new method, a new code for heliostat field layout design (HFLD) has been developed and a new heliostat field layout for the PS10 plant at the PS10 location has been designed by using the new code. Compared with current PS10 layout, the new designed heliostats have the same optical efficiency but with a faster response speed. In addition, to evaluate the feasibility of crops growth on the field land under heliostats, a new calculation method for the annual sunshine duration on the land surface is proposed as well.     

Mathematical formulation of a graphical method for a no-blocking heliostat field layout

The graphical method for a no-blocking radial staggered layout was introduced within the joint work between the Center For Solar Energy Studies (CSES), Tripoli, and Atlantis Energy Ltd, Bern. It locates the heliostats in the field of a solar central receiver plant so that they provide no blocking losses over the year. In this method the field is divided into certain groups to increase the efficient use of land. The method is a simple one when compared to cell-wise procedures, making it more suitable for preliminary design of heliostat fields. At the same time, the method can be represented by a set of mathematical equations, consequently facilitating its computer implementation. In this paper a mathematical formulation of the method will be introduced, as well as its algorithm. Also, a criterion for the transfer to a new heliostat group is proposed based on mirror density.     

Rose pattern for heliostat field optimization with a dynamic speciation-based mutation differential evolution

Concentrated solar power technology is one of the most promising technologies in energy field. Arguably, the heliostat field layout is a crucial component in solar power tower system. Numerous studies have been developed for heliostat field optimization. However, most of the existing layouts which utilize radial staggered patterns are based on only two or four variables, leading to relatively rigid modes due to strong configuration constraints. In this article, we propose a new method called rose layout, which divides the regular radial staggered pattern into six sectors and they are optimized separately. Therefore, the radial increments between consecutive rows are not restricted to zones or rows, only relevant to which sector they belong to. This arrangement is more flexible and also efficient. Furthermore, a new differential evolution algorithm with a dynamic speciation-based mutation strategy (DSM-DE) is developed to solve this high-dimensional problem. In order to validate the proposed rose pattern and DSM-DE, three sets of comparative experiments were carried out. The first set of tests were operated with the conventional four optimization variables, the second series optimized total 43 radial increments between consecutive rows, whereas the third series employed the rose layout. All sets of cases were optimized by four competitive variants of differential evolution algorithm, ie, JADE, SHADE, EB-LSHADE, and DSM-DE. Experimental results verified that the rose layout can obtain higher overall optical efficiency and less land coverage than previous methods and DSM-DE is superior to other DE variants for this high-dimensional problem. The heliostat field studied in this article is simulated in Qinghai, China. By integrating rose layout with DSM-DE, the field unweighted efficiency progressed from 44.386% to 53.972%, and the annual weighted efficiency reached 59.091%, which was 0.318% higher than the 43-variable optimization.     

Development of a mathematical model for optimizing a heliostat field layout using differential evolution method

In this study, differential evolution was employed to perform optimization of a heliostat field. A complete mathematical code was developed for this purpose, which generates a heliostat field and calculates the optimum spacing between heliostats through differential evolution optimization technique. The optimization was executed for two sets of two cases and compared with an un‐optimized case. In the first case, only the optical performance was optimized, whereas in the second case, the normalized ratio of the optical performance to the land area covered by the heliostat field was maximized. In the first set of cases, the extra security distance between the heliostats was neglected, whereas in the second set of cases, the extra security distance was taken into account. To apply and examine the application of the optimization algorithm developed, 3 days of the year were selected: March 21, June 21, and December 21, considering Dhahran, Saudi Arabia as an illustrative example. For June 21, when the extra security distance between the heliostats is neglected, the optical efficiency of the un‐optimized case was 0.6026, while for the first optimized case, it was 0.6395, and for the second optimized case, it was 0.6033. However, when the extra security distance was considered, the optical efficiency of the un‐optimized case was 0.6167; while for the first optimized case, it was 0.6241, and for the second optimized case, it was 0.6167. Similar observations were realized for the other cases selected. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An optimization tool to design the field of a solar power tower plant allowing heliostats of different sizes

The design of a solar power tower plant involves the optimization of the heliostat field layout. Fields are usually designed to have all heliostats of identical size. Although the use of a single heliostat size has been questioned in the literature, there are no tools to design fields with heliostats of several sizes at the same time. In this paper, the problem of optimizing the heliostat field layout of a system with heliostats of different sizes is addressed. We present an optimization tool to design solar plants allowing two heliostat sizes. The methodology is illustrated with a particular example considering different heliostat costs. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energy and exergy analyses and optimization study of an integrated solar heliostat field system for hydrogen production

In this paper, we propose an integrated system, consisting of a heliostat field, a steam cycle, an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and an electrolyzer for hydrogen production. Some parameters, such as the heliostat field area and the solar flux are varied to investigate their effect on the power output, the rate of hydrogen produced, and energy and exergy efficiencies of the individual systems and the overall system. An optimization study using direct search method is also carried out to obtain the highest energy and exergy efficiencies and rate of hydrogen produced by choosing several independent variables. The results show that the power and rate of hydrogen produced increase with increase in the heliostat field area and the solar flux. The rate of hydrogen produced increases from 0.006 kg/s to 0.063 kg/s with increase in the heliostat field area from 8000 m² to 50,000 m². Moreover, when the solar flux is increased from 400 W/m² to 1200 W/m², the rate of hydrogen produced increases from 0.005 kg/s to 0.018 kg/s. The optimization study yields maximum energy and exergy efficiencies and the rate of hydrogen produced of 18.74%, 39.55% and 1571 L/s, respectively.     

塔式太阳能电站分离式吸热器热流分布与定日镜场设计研究

优化定日镜场,提高其年聚光效率是降低塔式太阳能电站投资成本的主要途径。以直接蒸汽(DSG)塔式太阳能电站的分离式吸热器为研究对象,为解决现有定日镜场设计过程复杂、耗时较长的不足,利用锥体光学法和径向间距优化法来设计定日镜场。为满足分离式吸热器蒸发段和过热段所需要的热量,采用分配、迭代计算方法得到了分离式吸热器蒸发段和过热段所对应的定日镜场。由于分离式吸热器与定日镜场之间的光热耦合方式比较复杂,因此采用计算精度较高的射线追踪法对分离式吸热器表面的热流分布进行模拟。研究结果表明:通过模拟得到的分离式吸热器所对应定日镜场的布置形式,可使该定日镜场的年聚光效率达到0.652 2,其中分离式吸热器的蒸发段和过热段分别对应了442个和182个定日镜;设计点时刻(春分12:00),分离式吸热器蒸发段和过热段接收的热量分别为35.48 MW和14.19 MW,所获得的热流分布结果可为分离式吸热器的管束布置方式和热学性能计算奠定基础。     

Range of motion study for two different sun-tracking methods in the application of heliostat field

Since the beginning of the history in the application of heliostats, the sun-tracking method is generally implemented using the Azimuth-Elevation method. Although Spinning-Elevation method was first proposed by Ries et al. and then popularized by Chen et al., it is still not widely applied in a large scale solar energy application especially in central tower system. This paper will study in more detail the implementation of the Spinning-Elevation method in the central tower system for a comparison to that of the typical Azimuth-Elevation method. The annual accumulated angles of the two different sun-tracking methods were analyzed in details for both the cases of a single heliostat and the heliostat field.     

风力发电机组塔架仿真和分析

简单介绍了风力发电机组塔架的类型和风力发电机组塔架设计的重要性。分别在某种参考风速及其风向改变90°和180°条件下,运用风力发电机组设计软件Bladed for Windows对风力发电机组塔架风载荷进行了仿真分析。最后,结合仿真结果和实际情况分析了叶片安装角、风轮锥角、风轮仰角、悬距、塔架气动阻力系数和塔架线密度等对塔架风载荷的影响。为风力发电机组的塔架设计提供了参考。     

Exergetic analysis and economic evaluation of central tower receiver solar thermal power plant

This article presents the analytical evaluation of a central tower receiver solar thermal power plant with air‐cooled volumetric receiver using exergy analysis. The energetic and exergetic losses as well as the efficiencies of a typical central tower receiver‐based solar thermal power plant have been carried out under the specific operating conditions. The enhancement in efficiency of the plant from the variation in power input to constant power input achieved by thermal storage backup condition has been determined. It is found that the year round average energetic efficiency can be increased from 24.15% to 25.08% and year round average exergetic efficiency can be increased, from 26.10% to 27.10% for the selected location Jodhpur. The unit cost of electric energy generation (kWh_e) is found to be INR 10.09 considering 30‐year lifespan of the solar plant along with a 10% interest rate. The present study provides a base for the development of future solar thermal power plants in India. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Collapse analysis of wind turbine tower under the coupled effects of wind and near‐field earthquake

In this paper, the pattern of wind turbine tower collapse as a result of the coupled effects of wind and an intense, near‐field earthquake is investigated. The constitutive relation of the tower cylinder steel is simulated via a nonlinear kinematic hardening model, and the specific value of each parameter in the constitutive model is provided. A precise model of the tower structure coupled with the blade is created using a nonlinear, finite element method. This method is compared with the results from a static pushover test of a small cylindrical tower to validate the finite element modeling method in this research. Two earthquake wave sets are selected as inputs. One contains 20 near‐field velocity pulse‐like ground motion waves with various pulse periods; the other contains 20 ordinary far‐field ground motion waves. A wind turbine tower with a hub height of 60 m is selected as an example for analysis. The dynamic response of this tower as a result of the coupled effects of the two ground motion wave sets and a transient wind load is calculated using nonlinear time‐history analysis. The calculation results shows that the average horizontal displacement of the tower top as a result of the near‐field velocity pulse‐like ground motion is 33% larger than the case with far‐field ground motion. Finally, the seismic collapse vulnerability curve of this wind turbine tower is calculated. The seismic collapse capacity of the tower is evaluated, and the seismic collapse pattern of the tower is analyzed.     

Evolution of China’s power dispatch principle and the new energy saving power dispatch policy

With social economic reform in the past decades, the power industry of China is gradually evolving from a highly integrated one toward an electricity market, which can be characterized based on the transition of the power dispatch principle. To attract investment in the power generating industry, China introduced non-state-owned power plants to the original system of a highly vertically integrated power industry with annual power generation quota guarantees, which makes the traditional economic dispatch principle not applicable. The newly debuted energy saving power dispatch (ESPD) is an attempt to fully exploit the maximum energy savings and was implemented by an administrative code. Starting in August 2007, the pilot operation of the ESPD was implemented in five provinces, but after two years, it is still not widely applied all over the country. This paper details the transition of China’s power dispatch principle with particular attention to its origin and content. Moreover, the factors that influence the ESPD’s actual energy saving effect are discussed, as well as the sustainability of the policy.     

Targeting the optimum steam system for power generation with increased flexibility in the steam power island design

The importance of the steam cycle design to maximize power generation is demonstrated using pinch analysis targeting techniques is demonstrated. Fixed steam headers, such as assumed in total site analysis, give no allowance for reheating before turbine expansion, which can be valuable to consider when optimizing the steam system for certain plant configurations. Additionally, previous work optimizes the steam pressure level based on its saturation temperature alone. The present work examines the effect of including both sensible and latent heating of steam in the balanced composite curve. It is shown that including sensible heating allows for better thermal matching between the process and steam system which results in improving the overall efficiency while minimizing cost. A case study using an IGCC plant with CCS is analyzed to assess changes in steam cycle design on the plant efficiency and cost.     

Implications of sustainability assessment for electricity system design: The case of the Ontario Power Authority’s integrated power system plan

This paper explores the results and implications of an illustrative application of a sustainability assessment framework in the design and evaluation of a major integrated power system plan. The paper examines the integrated power system plan developed by the Ontario Power Authority in 2007. The basic framework rests on a generic set of evaluation criteria reflecting basic requirements for progress towards sustainability that was adopted, reinterpreted and applied by the Authority in support of its proposed plan. In response to evident deficiencies in the Authority’s work, the authors and colleagues undertook a re-examination using a more fully elaborated sustainability assessment framework, specified for application to power system planning. The results point to a plan and plan components substantially different from those proposed by the Authority. More generally, the results highlight three advantages of applying such a sustainability assessment framework: comprehensive coverage of key requirements for progress towards sustainability while ensuring careful attention to the context and concerns of the sector; emphasis on identifying plan options that avoid major trade-offs among the sustainability criteria and recognition of interactions among the social, ecological, economic and technological realms favouring options that offer multiple, mutually reinforcing and lasting benefits.     

A novel integrated simulation approach couples MCRT and Gebhart methods to simulate solar radiation transfer in a solar power tower system with a cavity receiver

An integrated simulation approach, which couples Monte Carlo ray tracing (MCRT) and Gebhart methods, is proposed to simulate solar radiation transfer in a solar power tower system with a cavity receiver. The MCRT method is used to simulate the solar radiation transfer process from the heliostat field to interior surfaces of the cavity receiver, and the Gebhart method is used to simulate the multiple reflections process of solar radiation within the cavity. This integrated simulation method not only reveals the cavity effect on receiver performance but also provides real-time simulation results. Based on this method, the reflection loss of the cavity receiver and solar flux distributions are discussed in detail. The results indicate that the cavity effect can significantly reduce the reflection loss and homogenize the concentrated solar energy distributed on interior surfaces to some extent. Moreover, the surface absorptivity has less effect on the reflection loss when cavity effect is considered. The cavity effect on homogenizing solar flux distributions is greater with lower surface absorptivity. In addition, although the concentrated solar energy is distributed on the cavity aperture with similar shapes at different times, the shape of the solar flux distribution on interior surfaces varies greatly with time.     

Methodology for modelling plug-in electric vehicles in the power system and cost estimates for a system with either smart or dumb electric vehicles

The article estimates the costs of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) in a future power system as well as the benefits from smart charging and discharging EVs (smart EVs). To arrive in a good estimate, a generation planning model was used to create power plant portfolios, which were operated in a more detailed unit commitment and dispatch model. In both models the charging and discharging of EVs is optimised together with the rest of the power system. Neither the system cost nor the market price of electricity for EVs turned out to be high (36-263 €/vehicle/year in the analysed scenarios). Most of the benefits of smart EVs come from smart timing of charging although benefits are also accrued from provision of reserves and lower power plant portfolio cost. The benefits of smart EVs are 227 €/vehicle/year. This amount has to cover all expenses related to enabling smart EVs and need to be divided between different actors. Additional benefits could come from the avoidance of grid related costs of immediate charging, but these were not part of the analysis.     

CRS4-2: A numerical code for the calculation of the solar power collected in a central receiver system

The analysis of the solar power collected at the receiver in solar tower systems requires the use of efficient and accurate numerical codes. This paper presents a new Fortran computer program, CRS4-2 (an acronym for Crs4 Research Software for Central Receiver Solar System SimulationS), for the simulation of the optical performance of a central receiver solar plant. The implemented mathematical algorithm allows for the calculation of cosine, shading and blocking effects for heliostats arbitrarily arranged in the solar field. Special attention has been given to ensure the maximum flexibility concerning the number, dimension, shape, and position of the heliostats. In the present implementation, the solar field can be composed of both square and circular heliostats possibly mixed together, each one of them characterized by the size and height from the ground. The modular design of CRS4-2 allows the extension to heliostats of arbitrary shape with only minor modifications of the code. Shading and blocking effects are computed by a tessellation of the heliostats: therefore, the numerical accuracy depends only on the refinement of the tessellation. The application to actual systems has shown that the approach is stable and general.