1050 results about "Heliostat" patented technology

A tracking heliostat array comprises a plurality of optical elements. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a frame separated from the optical elements. Each of the optical elements has an orientation with respect to the frame. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a plurality of supports coupled to at least one of the optical elements. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a turnbuckle coupled to at least one of the supports and to the frame. Rotation of the turnbuckle causes the corresponding support to be displaced relative to the frame. The orientation of the optical element relative to the frame is adjustable. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a traveling actuator configured to rotate at least one of the turnbuckles. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a positioning mechanism supporting the traveling actuator. The positioning mechanism is configured to move the traveling actuator from a first selected turnbuckle to a second selected turnbuckle.

A method, apparatus, and system for a solar-driven chemical plant that may include a solar thermal receiver having a cavity with an inner wall, where the solar thermal receiver is aligned to absorb concentrated solar energy from one or more of 1) an array of heliostats, 2) solar concentrating dishes, and 3) any combination of the two. Some embodiments may include a solar-driven chemical reactor having multiple reactor tubes located inside the cavity of solar thermal receiver, wherein a chemical reaction driven by radiant heat occurs in the multiple reactor tubes, and wherein particles of biomass are gasified in the presence of a steam (H2O) carrier gas and methane (CH4) in a simultaneous steam reformation and steam biomass gasification reaction to produce reaction products that include hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas using the solar thermal energy from the absorbed concentrated solar energy in the multiple reactor tubes.

A system architecture for large concentrated solar power applications that increases heliostat utilization efficiency and land utilization efficiency is described. Embodiments of the invention include a large heliostat field in which are distributed a number of receiving locations, and wherein there is the assignment of heliostats to receiving locations is dynamic. Embodiments of the invention include dynamically targeting heliostats to receiving locations wherein the target determination process is performed frequently during operation and wherein such dynamic targeting can be utilized to various ends. Embodiments of the invention include configurations wherein cosine losses associated with heliostat pointing are significantly reduced, wherein heliostats may be closely packed without incurring substantial shadowing and blocking losses thereby significantly increasing land utilization, and wherein other benefits are realized.

A sunlight collecting system and a solar energy utilization system which collects sunlight with the sunlight collecting system are provided, a sunlight collecting system including a solar heat collector which includes a heat collecting element which is formed by a helically wound heat exchange medium circulation pipe inside which the heat exchange medium flows, in such a way to have an incurved light receiving surface which narrows and converges towards the sunlight inlet and a sunlight collecting reflector which includes a reflector group which includes a plurality of reflector segments each of which includes a reflecting surface which makes sunlight converge on a heat collector, a sunlight collecting system in which a plurality of heliostats Bm are arranged in places which are irradiated by the sunlight between a plurality of heliostats An, in which each of the heliostats An and the heliostats Bm reflect light in a direction to a light collecting point of a heliostat group in which the heliostat is included.

The invention discloses a heliostat tracking error correction method. Based on the characteristics that a heliostat tracking deviation angle has small variation in a short time and the tracking deviation angles at the same moment in the adjacent days have small variation, an image collecting and processing system is adopted to detect and obtain the tracking deviation angles of a certain heliostat at multiple moments in the whole day, or the tracking deviation angles obtained by the heliostat at multiple moments in one day or previous days are taken as the intraday tracking deviation angle; an intraday tracking deviation curve of the heliostat is obtained by the interpolation; according to the tracking deviation curve, the current angle of the heliostat is corrected to ensure that the facula of the heliostat can basically accurately be projected to a target position. The invention obtains the tracking deviation angles at multiple moments by detection of heliostat tracking error many days a year or many times a day; the everyday corresponding tracking deviation curve of each heliostat can be found by one-year or multiple-year tracking deviation angle data analysis treatment and curve fitting; and thus, the facula of the heliostat can be projected to the target position more accurately.

The invention discloses a groove-tower combined solar-heat power generation system, which comprises a subsystem for low-temperature groove-type heat collection and low-temperature heat storage, a subsystem for high-temperature tower-type heat collection and high-temperature heat storage, as well as a power generation subsystem, wherein the subsystem for low-temperature groove-type heat collection and low-temperature heat storage is used for receiving and gathering solar radiation energy, converting the received solar radiation energy into medium-temperature heat energy and conveying the medium-temperature heat energy to the subsystem for high-temperature tower-type heat collection and high-temperature heat storage or a low-temperature heat accumulator; the subsystem for high-temperature tower-type heat collection and high-temperature heat storage is used for receiving and gathering solar radiation energy, converting the received solar radiation energy into high-temperature heat energy and conveying the high-temperature heat energy to a power subsystem or a high-temperature heat accumulator; and the power subsystem is used for converting the received heat energy into electric energy and outputting the electric energy. The system solves the problems that a groove-type solar-heat power generation system is low in heat-collecting temperature and difficult to promote; the optical efficiency of a heliostat filed of a simple-tower solar-heat power generation system is greatly affected by the scale of power plants; and the simple-tower solar-heat power generation system is not easy to maximize. The system has the advantages of reducing initial cost and occupied area.

A tracking heliostat array comprises a plurality of optical elements. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a frame separated from the optical elements. Each of the optical elements has an orientation with respect to the frame. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a plurality of supports coupled to at least one of the optical elements. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a turnbuckle coupled to at least one of the supports and to the frame. Rotation of the turnbuckle causes the corresponding support to be displaced relative to the frame. The orientation of the optical element relative to the frame is adjustable. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a traveling actuator configured to rotate at least one of the turnbuckles. The tracking heliostat array further comprises a positioning mechanism supporting the traveling actuator. The positioning mechanism is configured to move the traveling actuator from a first selected turnbuckle to a second selected turnbuckle.

Systems and methods of calibrating heliostat parameters for subsequent open-loop sun-tracking, the calibration based on driving artificial light source reflections from one or more heliostats into one or more image sensors.

An instrument for a solar energy system including a receiver and a heliostat to reflect solar energy on to the receiver. The instrument includes a first element adapted to form an image of the sun, a second element adapted to form an image of the receiver, and a detector. The detector is positioned to receive each of the images and a comparator is adapted to detect a distance between the images. The comparator generates an error correction signal based on the distance between the images. The error correction signal is received by a controller that controls the operation of a postioner that adjusts the position of the heliostat accordingly.

The invention relates to a plane mirror being capable of projecting sunlight directionally which is the usually-called Tingri mirror and belongs to the solar energy application technical field. In the device, positioning plus elevation tracking or auto-rotating plus elevation tracking is adopted; the device comprises a plane mirror, a frame with a dimension small enough to be formed at one time, an adjusting device, a positioning and guiding pipe arranged a center tower and the Tingri mirror, a positioning sensor and a control system which carries out control and error judgment according to signals produced by reflection light reaching a mirror surface of a four-quadrant photosensitive element through the positioning and guiding pipe. If the invention is adopted, as long as sunlight, no matter where the sun move, the reflection light of the Tingri mirror can always project into a collector. Due to the adoption of the positioning and guiding pipe, the positioning sensor and DCS (distributed control system), a mirror with a small area can be used, reducing the difficulty in production, installation and commissioning and thus reducing the cost significantly.

A solar collector system includes a plurality of frames. Each frame includes at least a pair of spaced apart side members, a plurality of cross members connected to the side members, the cross members pivotally moveable from a shipping configuration to a deployed configuration wherein in the deployed configuration, each cross member is positioned relative to an adjacent cross member with a predetermined angle, and a plurality of stantions extending from the frames. The solar collector system further includes a plurality of heliostats, each heliostat mounted to one of the stantions, and a plurality of ballasts coupled to the frames, each ballast having a lower surface contacting the ground without substantially penetrating the ground to maintain a position of the frames on the ground.

A solar concentration plant which uses water/steam as a heat-carrying fluid, in any thermodynamic cycle or system for the exploitation of process heat, which is comprised of an evaporation subsystem, where saturated steam is produced under the conditions of pressure of the system, and a superheater subsystem through which the steam reaches the required conditions of pressure and temperature at the turbine inlet, and in which an attemperation system (10) may be incorporated, these being physically separated and interconnected by means of a drum (5) in which the separation of water and steam takes place, and in which a strategic control of the pointing of the field of heliostats (1) towards either of the subsystems (evaporator or superheater) may be carried out, with individual or group pointing of the heliostats, in such a way that they jointly control both the pressure within the drum (5) and the outlet temperature of the superheated steam (11).

The invention discloses a method for scheduling a heliostat field in a tower solar thermal power station. In the method, an open-closed loop combined control mode is adopted; in open loop control, the control direction and position of a heliostat are computed in real time according to the running rule of the sun, the latitude and longitude of the heliostat as well as the geometric relationship between the positions of the heliostat and a heat absorber; and in closed loop control, a target position corresponding to each heliostat is determined through a closed loop sensor, and the heliostat is accurately tracked according to a real-time angle value of the heliostat fed back by the closed loop sensor, so that the energy-flux density of the heliostat field is homogenized and scheduled. According to the method, automatic homogenizing and scheduling of the energy-flux density projection of the heliostat field are realized, and the defects of poor energy-flux density homogenizing effect and unavailable self-correction caused by a large tracking error existing in open loop control are overcome effectively; and moreover, the method is easy to implement and is convenient to operate.

An azimuth sensor unit 15 and an altitude sensor unit 16 have pairs of optical sensors 18 and 20, respectively, disposed along their respective directions, which pair of optical sensors are disposed toward the sun in the form of a tapered section narrower to the front end and broader to the rear end with their light-receiving surfaces outward, and the azimuth sensor unit and the altitude sensor unit themselves rotate so as to balance light-receiving amounts of their respective pairs of optical sensors and send signals for rotating a concave mirror 10 in the same directions by half the amounts of the rotations of the azimuth sensor unit and the altitude sensor unit to a drive mechanism.

Which, using a heat transfer fluid in any thermodynamic cycle or system for using process heat, comprises:

• • two-dimensional solar concentrator means for heating the heat transfer fluid from a temperature T1 to a temperature T2;
  • three-dimensional solar concentrator means for overheating the heat transfer fluid from a temperature T2 to a temperature T3;

such that the advantages of working at high-temperatures of the three-dimensional solar concentrator means are taken advantage of with overall costs similar to those of two-dimensional solar concentrator means.

In a specific application for generating electric power, the two-dimensional solar concentrator means consist of a parabolic trough collector (1), while the three-dimensional solar concentrator means consist of a heliostat field and central tower (2) for generating overheated steam that expands in a turbine (6) coupled to an electric generator (7).

This invention deals with the general topic of adaptive non-imaging tracking of the sun. A transmission-mode electro-optical system is presented for solar energy tracking and collection. The scale of the system may range from small portable systems to large-scale industrial power plants used for the production of environmentally benign energy. It maybe integrated directly into buildings and other platforms without the need for heliostats to hold photovoltaic cells or other energy conversion devices above the building or other host platform. It makes solar energy harvesting systems practical by allowing the separation of tracking, collection, concentration, aggregation, distribution, and energy conversion. This novel system is unique and distinct from other sun tracking and energy conversion systems because it allows adaptive solid-state electronics to be used in place of conventional mechanical tracking heliostats. Furthermore, it is highly precise and therefore allows very high levels of concentration to be achieved in an dynamic environment. It is also cost effective because it leverages integrated opto-electronics instead of mechanical devices to perform sun tracking.