The optical performance of a novel solar concentrator consisting of a 400 spherical heliostat array and a linked two-axis tracking system is analyzed using the Monte Carlo ray-tracing technique. The optical efficiency and concentration ratio are compared for four different heliostat linkage configurations, including linkages of 1 × 1, 1 × 2, 2 × 2, 4 × 4, and 5 × 5 heliostats for 7-hour operation and the selected months of June and December. The optical performance of the concentrator decreases with the increasing number of heliostats in the individual groups due to increasing optical inaccuracies. In June, the best-performing linked configuration, in which 1 heliostat in the east-west direction and 2 heliostats in the north-south direction are linked, provides a monthly-averaged 7-hour optical efficiency and average concentration ratio of 79% and 511 suns, respectively. In December, the optical efficiency and the average concentration ratio decreases to 61% and 315 suns, respectively.
In this work, a novel concentrating solar power system consisting of a small heliostat field utilizing simplified two-axis tracking is proposed for distributed-scale solar thermal power generation. Monte Carlo ray tracing is used to characterize the optical performance of the system and to parametrically evaluate its design. Radiative flux distributions are obtained in the receiver plane for solar irradiation at an example location of Albuquerque, NM, and date of June 21. The system delivers an 8-hour daily average optical efficiency of 64.4%, flux concentration ratio of 122.8 suns, and daily average thermal power of 47.3 kWt for a receiver of 0.35 m radius. The peak optical efficiency at solar noon was found to be 97.9% with a concentration ratio of 201.3 and thermal power of 77.5 kWt for the base simulation parameters.
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