sbpRAY – A fast and versatile tool for the simulation of large scale CSP plants

Gebreiter, Daniel; Weinrebe, Gerhard; Wöhrbach, Markus; Arbes, Florian; Gross, Fabian; Landman, Willem A.

doi:10.1063/1.5117674

Cited by 12 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…T-shaped heliostats could have the issue of the corners touching the ground with a linear slope drive, though can be avoided by increasing pedestal height. In a review by Pfahl et al it was also noted that pedestal mounted heliostat drives may be more expensive than linear drive systems [30]. Alternate drive systems such as rim drives with cables may also be cheaper than the pedestal mounted systems A cost reduction study by Kolb et al evaluated cost reduction techniques for heliostats [10] where several drive mechanisms were discussed.…”

Section: Drivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roadmap to Advance Heliostat Technologies for Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power

Zhu¹,

Augustine²,

Mitchell³

et al. 2022

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Heliostat-based concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) systems can offer immense potential to provide low-cost, dispatchable renewable thermal and electrical energy to help achieve 100% decarbonized energy infrastructure in the United States. Heliostats are a major determinant of both capital cost and performance of state-of-the-art commercial molten salt towers and Generation 3 CSP systems. 1 In 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) launched the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon), a five-year initiative to advance heliostat technologies. The HelioCon mission is threefold: (1) establish strategic core testing and modeling capabilities and infrastructure at national labs; (2) support heliostat technology development in relevant industries; and (3) serve as a central repository to integrate industry, academia, and other stakeholders for heliostat technology research, development, validation, and deployment. In this report, HelioCon presents a roadmapping study on advancing heliostat technologies, intended as a central reference for the entire CSP community.1 More information on Gen3 technologies can be found at https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/generation-3concentrating-solar-power-systems-gen3-csp. vii This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications. Metrology and StandardsAppropriate measurement techniques and industry standards are fundamental for product design, prototyping, engineering, and improvement. Gaps in metrology:Opto-mechanical metrology (mirror slope error, mirror facet canting error, and heliostat tracking error) is complex, error-prone, and requires high optical precision, necessitating rigorous validation of different technologies using the same measurement parameter(s). Current metrology gaps include:• Lack of at least two viable metrology techniques for a given measurement parameter (such as heliostat tracking error, available for the global CSP industry)• Insufficient or missing validation of any viable metrology technique against a different, trusted metrology technique or ground-truth article. Gaps in standards:Gaps in community-wide standards for site characterization and heliostat design, testing, field design, and field acceptance test protocols result in significant barriers for new developers, extended design cycles, lower investor confidence, and more complicated arbitration between project parties. Gaps include:• Heliostat terminology • Heliostat design guidelines • Heliostat solar field design/simulation guidelines • Heliostat test guidelines • Heliostat solar field acceptance test guidelines • Site characterization guidelines (e.g., wind, topography, soiling characteristics). Recommended pathway forward: Addressing these gaps requires continuing development of new metrology tools and round-robin tests of existing/to-be-developed tools. More importantly, ix This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.o...

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Section: Drivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roadmap to Advance Heliostat Technologies for Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power

Zhu¹,

Augustine²,

Mitchell³

et al. 2022

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“…This means they are able to determine the Energies 2024, 17, 1282 2 of 18 shading and blocking in the solar field with great accuracy, although the high computation times make them generally unaffordable for optimization purposes. Despite that, in recent years MCRT tools have been developed, such as QMCRT [7] and sbpRAY [8], which, thanks to GPU technology, allow significantly shorter computation times. In this way, these codes can be used both for detailed simulation and optimization purposes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Methods for Calculating Shading and Blocking Efficiency in Central Receiver Systems

Ortega,

Barbero,

Rovira

2024

Energies

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This paper presents three new methods for calculating the shading and blocking efficiency in Central Receiver Systems (CRSs). All of them are characterized by the calculation of multiple useful and total reflecting areas without the need to resort to parallel calculation in the CPU or GPU, and by low computation times and minimum errors. They are being specially designed for implementation in codes focused on heliostat field design and optimization in CRSs. The proposed methods have been compared against two outstanding “individual” methods (homology and Boolean operations), in addition to a reference case based on the Monte Carlo ray-tracing (MCRT) technique. The results indicate that one of the proposed methods presents reduced error values and high computational speed, even relaxing the restrictions on candidate filtering. At the same error level, the global method is up to 7.80 times faster than the fastest individual method (homology) and up to 194 times faster than the method based on the MCRT technique. The causes of the main errors of each method are also analyzed.

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An accurate and cheaper method of estimating shading and blocking losses in a heliostat field through efficient filtering, removal of double counting and parallel plane assumption

Raj

Bhattacharya

2022

Solar Energy

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sbpRAY – A fast and versatile tool for the simulation of large scale CSP plants

Cited by 12 publications

References 8 publications

Roadmap to Advance Heliostat Technologies for Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power

Roadmap to Advance Heliostat Technologies for Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power

Global Methods for Calculating Shading and Blocking Efficiency in Central Receiver Systems

An accurate and cheaper method of estimating shading and blocking losses in a heliostat field through efficient filtering, removal of double counting and parallel plane assumption

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