Design of Heliostat Field for Small Scale Central Receiver System

Abstract

Central receiver system (CRS) is one of the type of concentrated solar power (CSP) technology which consists of heliostat field, receiver and power generation unit. Heliostats are nothing but the mirrors which concentrate solar radiation at one point on receiver which is located at the top of a high tower. Out of the total cost of system heliostat field contributes 50% and leads to about 47% of the annual energy losses. So placing of heliostats in field is most important in order to minimize optical losses and indirectly minimizes energy losses. In this Paper work, heliostat field is designed for no shadowing, blocking losses and optimized cosine efficiency for small field area specifically for Pune location. An algorithm is developed for heliostat distribution in heliostat field as per design using a MATLAB.