Different Tracking Error Distributions and their Effects on the Long-Term Performances of Parabolic Dish Solar Power Systems

Abstract

The performances of a parabolic dish power module are strongly dependent upon the accuracy of the tracking system. Four different tracking error distributions were used to evaluate the intercept factor and the thermal and engine efficiencies. Three of them are bounded dislributions and the last one is the widely used classical Gaussian distribution. The Gaussian distribution estimates lower performance than the other more realistic distributions. In the case of the concentrators with good quality optics and accurate tracking system, little difference was observed between the results obtained by using the three bounded distributions. The differences were imponant in the case of a less accurate tracking system.

A concise overview of heliostat fields-solar thermal collectors: Current state of art and future perspective

“…Pre‐tensioning of the elevation axis can be done by unbalancing of mirror panels whilst it is not possible to pre‐tension the vertical axes by gravity . In series of studies by Badescu, method of theoretically deriving the tracking error probability distribution and their influences on the system performance were outlined.…”

Cascade closed-loop control of solar trackers applied to HCPV systems

“…[16]. In the case of tracking systems applied to heliostats, the quality of the tracking error has been studied in several works using theoretical and empirical statistical distributions [17,18].…”

Effect of Tracking Error of Double-Axis Tracking Device on the Optical Performance of Solar Dish Concentrator

“…Many works focus on the research for the influence of tracking error on the optical performance or flux distribution of dish concentrator system [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21], but they do not consider the influence of EATD tracking error. Hughes [14] used statistical methods to establish an expression for the expected value of the intercept factor for various configurations and control law implementations.…”

“…The analysis assumes that a radially symmetric flux distribution is generated at the focal plane. Badescu [15] researched the different tracking error distributions and their effects on the long-term performances of parabolic dish solar power systems; he adopted four different tracking error distributions to evaluate the intercept factor and the thermal and engine efficiencies, three of them are bounded distributions and the last one is the widely used classical Gaussian distribution. Further, he also studied the theoretical derivation of heliostat tracking error distribution using methods of integral geometry and geometrical probabilities [16].…”