Design And Realization Of A Mini Heliostat Of A Solar Power Tower Plant

Abstract

The heliostat is the essential element of a solar power tower plant; a heliostatic field allows concentrating the sun rays at a single point (receiver) to have temperatures up to 1000 ° C. The sun tracking is provided by an automatic orientation system allowing them to continue the daytime trajectory of the sun so that they correctly project the reflected rays on the receiver. This part is the most expensive and the most complex of the solar power tower plant. The main objective of this work is to realize a motor control system, which allows the correction of the position of the heliostat in the event of a disturbance, by using the graphical interface of Matlab (GUI). In this paper, we propose and describe a two-axis sun tracking system with a mirror to reflect the solar ray back to the fixed tower that can be adjusted to minimize optical losses in the solar concentrator. This system was tested in the region of Hassi R’mel (Laghouat, Algeria) 520 km south of Algiers. First, simulations were performed using Proteus software to test the operation of stepper motors. After simulations and design calculations, the different parts of the prototype, the mechanical structure, and the electronic part, were implemented. The experimental results obtained are in good agreement with those obtained by the astronomical equations.

Keywords

• heliostat
• solar power tower plant
• sun tracking
• control system
• matlab gui