A power tower system (also called a central receiver system) is a type of concentrating solar power (CSP) system that consists of a heliostat field, tower and receiver, power block, and optional storage system. The field of flat, sun-tracking mirrors called heliostats focus direct normal solar radiation onto a receiver at the top of the tower, where a heat-transfer fluid is heated and pumped to the power block. The power block generates steam that drives a conventional steam turbine and generator to convert the thermal energy to electricity.

Solar Advisor models power tower systems  similar to the Solar Two system that use molten salt as the heat transfer fluid with external, cylindrical receivers. It models two-tank thermal energy storage systems.

Solar Advisor's power tower performance model uses TRNSYS components developed at the University of Wisconsin and described in Wagner (2008) Simulation and Predictive Performance Modeling of Utility-Scale Central Receiver System Power Plants http://sel.me.wisc.edu/theses/wagner08.zip  (32 MB). The solar field optimization algorithm is based on the DELSOL3 model developed at Sandia Laboratories, and described in Kistler (1986) A User's Manual for DELSOL3: A Computer Code for Calculating the Optical Performance and Optimal System Design for Solar Thermal Central Receiver Plants (SAND86-8018) http://www.prod.sandia.gov/cgi-bin/techlib/access-control.pl/1986/868018.pdf (10 MB).

This   describes the power tower system input variables and some basic calculations in Solar Advisor, and is intended to be used with the two publications, which describes power tower systems and the model algorithms in more detail.

This section describes the system input pages that are available when the Program Technology on the Program page is Concentrating Solar Power and the CSP Type on the Configuration page is Power Tower:

The sample file, Standard CSP Power Tower System.sam, contains a single case representing a 100 MW field of collector-receiver-engine units.