Power Tower

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's power tower performance model uses TRNSYS components developed at the University of Wisconsin and described in Simulation and Predictive Performance Modeling of Utility-Scale Central Receiver System Power Plants, Wagner (2008) http://sel.me.wisc.edu/theses/wagner08.zip (32 MB). For a description of the type of system the power tower model can represent, see About the Solar Advisor Model.

The solar field optimization algorithm is based on the DELSOL3 model developed at Sandia National Laboratory, and described in A User's Manual for DELSOL3: A Computer Code for Calculating the Optical Performance and Optimal System Design for Solar Thermal Central Receiver Plants, Kistler (1986), (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.

For an example of power tower systems, open the sample template Sample Power Tower System: On the File menu, click Open Sample Template and select the template from the list.The template three cases representing a 100 MW field of collector-receiver-engine units with and without thermal energy storage, and sample SamUL script for relative density calculation. For information about SamUL, on the Help menu, click SamUL Guide.

This section describes the system input pages that are available when the technology option in the Technology and Market window is Concentrating Solar Power - Power Tower System.