Study on Heliostat Field Layout of Solar Power Tower Plant

Abstract

Three tower heliostat field layouts, EB, No blocking-dense, and DELSOL derived from the radial staggered layout and the principle of no blocking loss, were studied. After summarizing the mathematical models of the three heliostat field layouts, combined with some design parameters of Gemasolar power tower plant, the software SolarPILOT was used to model and simulate the heliostat field according to the three layout modes. MATLAB was used to process the coordinate data of the heliostat field obtained by the modeling, and the change curves of radial spacing and azimuth spacing were obtained, so as to verify the rationality of the three layout mathematical models. The layout rules of the heliostat ring were obtained by analyzing the arrangement characteristics of the basic ring and the staggered ring in each heliostat field. At the same time, the performance of different layouts was compared from the number of heliostats, the optical efficiency, the land utilization ratio and the receiving energy of the heliostat field, and their advantages and disadvantages were analyzed. The results show that in the range of 1 000 m radius of the heliostat field, the average annual optical efficiency and land utilization rate of the heliostat field under the No blocking-dense layout are the highest, followed by the EB layout. However, the number of the heliostats and the receiving energy of the heliostat field under the EB layout are the largest, and the performance characteristics of the DELSOL layout are the lowest.

Keywords

• solar thermal power generation
• solar power tower plant
• heliostat field layout
• radial spacing
• azimuth spacing