Design and Simulation of Small Heliostat Field at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS Campus

Solar Power Tower systems have attracted the worldwide interest since the early 1980s and heliostat fields have been an area for development due to their high cost and important function. This paper presents a mathematical model to design a small heliostat field with 3 dual-axis heliostat units located in Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia. The model mainly relies on the sun position and tower and heliostat geometrical relations, namely, tower height and the ground distance of the concerned heliostats. The heliostat field layout is configured according to radial staggered pattern then varying the tower height and heliostat ground distance to calculate the facing and target angle of each heliostat. TRNSYS software was used to simulate the power output for the proposed heliostat field. The modeled heliostat field could deliver 10 kW for 12.4 m2reflective area for latitude 4.3̊ N. A solar power tower testing facility will be built according to the design specifications produced in this paper and TRNSYS simulation results are required to estimate the power input to the receiver system for sizing purpose in the future.

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Solar Thermal Power: Appraisal of Solar Power Towers

MATEC Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/matecconf/201822504003 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 225 ◽

pp. 04003

Author(s):

Hashem Shatnawi ◽

Chin Wai Lim ◽

Firas Basim Ismail

Keyword(s):

Heat Transfer ◽

Heat Flux ◽

Solar Power ◽

Thermal Power ◽

Tube Material ◽

Power Cycles ◽

Solar Thermal Power ◽

Central Receiver ◽

Receiver System ◽

Solar Power Tower

This study delves into several engineering procedures related to solar power tower plants. These installations come with central receiver system technologies and high-temperature power cycles. Besides a summary emphasizing on the fundamental components of a solar power tower, this paper also forwards a description of three receiver designs. Namely, these are the tubular receiver, the volumetric receiver and the direct absorber receiver. A variety of heat transfer mediums were assessed, while a comprehensive explanation was provided on the elements of external solar cylindrical receivers. This explanation covers tube material, molten salt, tube diameter and heat flux.

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Development of inexpensive, simple and environment-friendly solar selective absorber using copper nanoparticle

International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering ◽

10.1515/ijcre-2020-0154 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Aditi Yerudkar ◽

Mamta Nair ◽

Vishwanath H. Dalvi ◽

Sudhir V. Panse ◽

Vineeta D. Deshpande ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Copper Nanoparticles ◽

Thermal Energy ◽

Solar Power ◽

Solar Spectrum ◽

Precursor Solution ◽

The Sun ◽

Copper Nanoparticle ◽

Environment Friendly ◽

Maximum Heat ◽

Receiver System

Abstract Concentrating solar power is the most challenging and expensive yet highly efficient source of thermal energy from solar power. This is mainly due to the intermittency of the sun rays and expensive materials used to harness its energy. One of the main components adding to the cost is the solar selective absorber materials which are simply put spectrally selective coatings on a receiver system to capture maximum heat from the sun. These materials add to a large extent to the efficiency of converting the sun’s energy to thermal energy and in turn electricity. An ideal solar selective absorber possesses the property of absorbing maximum radiations in the solar spectrum and emit minimum in the thermal energy spectrum. In the current study, an inexpensive, simple and environment-friendly solar selective absorber is fabricated by a galvanic displacement reaction of copper nanoparticles on galvanised metal substrates. These copper nanoparticles have high absorptivity (0.8–0.9) by virtue of plasmon resonance property. The emissivity is low due to the highly reflective metal substrate. By varying size of the copper nanoparticles from 100 nm to 2 μm emissivity and absorptivity can be varied. However, achieving low emissivity and high absorptivity requires some optimising. The size depends on the concentration of precursor solution and immersion time of substrate. One of the remedies for controlling the deposition rate to tune the nanoparticle size and microstructure of deposited copper nanoparticle is by addition of a deposition inhibitor (e.g. Polyethylene glycol).

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Simulation of Utility-Scale Central Receiver System Power Plants

ASME 2009 3rd International Conference on Energy Sustainability, Volume 2 ◽

10.1115/es2009-90132 ◽

2009 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Michael J. Wagner ◽

Sanford A. Klein ◽

Douglas T. Reindl

Keyword(s):

Power Plants ◽

Solar Power ◽

Unit Cost ◽

Concentrating Solar Power ◽

Central Receiver ◽

Receiver System ◽

Parabolic Dish ◽

Tool Set ◽

Solar Power Tower ◽

Economic Analyses

The operation of solar energy systems is necessarily transient. Over the lifetime of a concentrating solar power plant, the system operates at design conditions only occasionally, with the bulk of operation occurring under part-load conditions depending on solar resource availability. Credible economic analyses of solar-electric systems requires versatile models capable of predicting system performance at both design and off-design conditions. This paper introduces new and adapted simulation tools for power tower systems including models for the heliostat field, central receiver, and the power cycle. The design process for solar power tower systems differs from that for other concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies such as the parabolic trough or parabolic dish systems that are nearly modular in their design. The design of an optimum power tower system requires a determination of the heliostat field layout and receiver geometry that results in the greatest long-term energy collection per unit cost. Research presented in this paper makes use of the DELSOL3 code (Kistler, 1986) which provides this capability. An interface program called PTGEN was developed to simplify the combined use of DELSOL3 and TRNSYS. The final product integrates the optimization tool with the detailed component models to provide a comprehensive modeling tool set for the power tower technology.

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Short-Term Forecasts of DNI from an Integrated Forecasting System (ECMWF) for Optimized Operational Strategies of a Central Receiver System

Energies ◽

10.3390/en12071368 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (7) ◽

pp. 1368 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Lopes ◽

Conceição ◽

Silva ◽

Fasquelle ◽

Salgado ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Power ◽

Weather Prediction ◽

Electric Energy ◽

Numerical Weather Prediction Model ◽

Short Term ◽

Operational Strategies ◽

Central Receiver ◽

Receiver System ◽

Forecasting System ◽

Solar Power Tower

Short-term forecasts of direct normal irradiance (DNI) from the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) and the global numerical weather prediction model of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) were used in the simulation of a solar power tower, through the System Advisor Model (SAM). Recent results demonstrated that DNI forecasts have been enhanced, having the potential to be a suitable tool for plant operators that allows achieving higher energy efficiency in the management of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants, particularly during periods of direct solar radiation intermittency. The main objective of this work was to assert the predictive value of the IFS forecasts, regarding operation outputs from a simulated central receiver system. Considering a 365-day period, the present results showed an hourly correlation of ≈0.78 between the electric energy injected into the grid based on forecasted and measured data, while a higher correlation was found for the daily values (≈0.89). Operational strategies based on the forecasted results were proposed for plant operators regarding the three different weather scenarios. Although there were still deviations due to the cloud and aerosol representation, the IFS forecasts showed a high potential to be used for supporting informed energy dispatch decisions in the operation of central receiver units.

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