Dynamic distributed tower receiver system for collecting, aiming and receiving solar radiation
Inactive Publication Date: 2012-12-06
OLSEN ROLF MILES
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[0010]The invention involves a time dependent method for reducing cosine loss from heliostat fields in receiver system solar power plants with not one but multiple towers and multiple receivers. In this method heliostats change which tower mounted receiver they aim reflected Sun rays through day times to reduce cosine loss. In preferred embodiments a field of heliostats of several tens of acres has many towers and receivers. These systems are called dynamic distributed tower receiver systems (DDTRS).
[0011]The method also utilizes heliostat field layouts that can extend in the east-west direction which not only reduce cosine loss but also fit and fill many different potential plant sites without wasting land that is good for solar energy collection. The site fitting and filling ability is not readily shared by one tower sites since there is no expectation that a particular site will coincide with one tower heliostat field shapes favored by function leading to some combination of underused land or underused plant equipment.
[0012]The ability to reduce cosine loss and fill a site with efficient solar energy collecting heliostats increases with the number of receiving towers on the site. This has another major benefit because with increasing number, the required height of the towers decreases and at a certain height, around 30′-50′ (9 m-15 m) tall, the towers become similar to many other features in the landscape, for example farm buildings and trees. In this height range, the visual impact of a tower receiver system solar power plant becomes small and can be easily hidden or obscured by standard landscaping techniques, such as tree planting, and even productively hidden with agricultural planting such as orchards while wine vines can be used to obscure the lowest mounted heliostats now being made.
[0013]Reducing cosine loss and more completely filling a site with efficient solar energy collecting heliostats increases the amount of concentrated light collected per acre of solar power plant. Significant gains in the amount of concentrated light collected per acre have significant environmental, social and economic benefits. It is likely that in the next thirty years that millions, quite probably tens of millions, of acres of land in the United States will be covered with fields of heliostats. These acreages of valuable land taken by fields of moving mirrors can be cut with gains in the per acre amount of concentrated light collected.
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[0026]In across-landscape, diagram elevation views FIG. 3a and FIG. 3b two towers (10), each with a receiver (11), are shown in a multi-tower receiver system power plant with a heliostat field (12) and heliostats (13) between the two towers along the east-west direction (these elements need not fall on a single east-west line). The time period for FIG. 3a is mid-morning while that for FIG. 3b is mid-afternoon. A major difference between these two periods is that the heliostats between the two towers have changed which receiver they aim reflected Sun rays (14) at. This change in which tower / receiver to aim at is such that at both time periods for FIG. 3a and FIG. 3b the heliostats (13) are on the opposite side to the Sun's current apparent position of the tower / receiver they are aiming at, a one tower central receiver system can not achieve this.
[0027]FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example plan layout for a dynamic distributed tower receiver system on a 40 acre (440 yard×440 yard) site...
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The invention involves a time dependent method for reducing cosine loss from heliostat fields in receiver system solar power plants with not one but multiple towers and multiple receivers. In this method heliostats change which tower mounted receiver they aim reflected Sun rays through day times to reduce cosine loss. In preferred embodiments a field of heliostats of several tens of acres has many towers and receivers. These systems are called dynamic distributed tower receiver systems (DDTRS).
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The invention relates to fields of heliostats and aiming reflected Sun rays at receivers.BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION[0002]Central receiver systems and many other solar power technologies were first seriously considered in test projects, funded by national governments, in response to sharp rises in oil prices of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Stine and Harrigan wrote a useful summary of this work in Solar Energy Systems Design, (New York, N.Y.: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1985; accessible at http: / / www.powerfromthesun.net by William Stine and Michael Geyer).[0003]Referring to FIG. 1, a central receiver system solar power plant always includes as key elements radiation rays from the Sun (14), an absorber / receiver (11) for reflected solar radiation, a tower (10) to mount the absorber / receiver on, and a field of heliostats (12) that reflects and aims Sun rays at the absorber / receiver (11). The field of heliostats includes individual heliostats, for example 13...
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Login to View More IPC IPC(8): F24J2/38F24J2/10F24S50/20F24S23/70
CPCF24J2/07Y02E10/41F24J2002/385F24J2/16F24S20/20F24S23/77F24S2050/25Y02E10/40
InventorOLSEN, ROLF MILES
OwnerOLSEN ROLF MILES